THE LOVES AND MAERIAGES

SOME EMINENT PEKSONS.

THE

LOVES AND MAEEIAGES

OF

SOME EMINENT PERSONS.

BY
T. F. THISELTON-DYER.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

Itanium :
WARD AND DOWNEY,
12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1890.
[All rights reserved.']

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

CHAPTER I.
EARLY LOVES.
PAGE
Dean Alford — James Brindley — William Cobbett — John Constable
— Barry Cornwall — James Hogg — Leigh Hunt — Douglas Jerrold
— John Keble — Sir James Mackintosh — William Eosooe — Duke
of Devonshire — Anthony Trollope — James Watt — Samuel Wil-
berforce — William Wordsworth ...  ... ... 1

CHAPTER II.
EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.
Lord Abinger — George Crabbe— Allan Cunningham — Erasmus Dar
win — Dean Hook — Edward Irving — Sarah Kemble— Samuel
Lover — John Metcalf — Robert Moffat — Samuel Morley — Charles
Abbott, Lord Tenterden — Robert Southey  45

CHAPTER III.
UNHAPPILY MARRIED.
William Beckford — Lady Blessington — Lord Bolingbroke — Wil
liam Carey — Thomas Carlyle — Mrs. Hemans — Hon. Mrs. Hervey
— Elizabeth Inchbald — Elizabeth Landon — Dr. Parr — Samuel
Richardson — Charlotte Smith — Laurence Sterne — Wm. M.
Thackeray— Duke of Wellington— William Whitefield  93

VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
SEPARATION. PAGE
Lord Bolingbroke — Lord Byron — Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton —
Coleridge — Charles Dickens — Edmund Kean — Duke of Grafton
— Wm. Hazlitt — Walter Savage Landor — Dr. Lardner — Lord
Lyttelton — Lord Melbourne — Mulready — Hon. Mrs. Norton —
Shelley— John Wilkes   149
CHAPTER V.
DISAPPOINTED LOVE.
Duke of Bridgewater — Henry Thomas Buckle — William Cowper —
Dr. Doddridge— Henry Fielding — Edward Gibbon — Lord Mans
field — Turner — John Wesley  211
CHAPTER VI.
MARRIED BY CONSENT.
Earl of Berkeley — George Eliot — Charles James Fox — Marquis of
Wellesley — Lord Nelson — Charles Reade  242
CHAPTER VII.
UNMARRIED.
Jeremy Bentham — Bishop Butler — Hon. Henry Cavendish — Theo
dore Hook — David Hume— Goldsmith — John Keats — Charles
Lamb — Lord Macaulay — William Pitt — Pope — George Selwyn
—Swift— Bishop Thirlwall— Thomson— Horace Walpole ... 266

THE LOVES AND MARRIAGES
OF
SOME EMINENT PEESONS.

CHAPTER, I.
EARLY LOVES.
Dean Alford — James Brindley — William Cobbett — John Con
stable — Barry Cornwall — James Hogg — Leigh Hunt —
Douglas Jerrold — John Keble — Sir James Mackintosh — ¦
William Boscoe — Duke of Devonshire — Anthony Trollope —
James Watt — Samuel Wilberforce — William Wordsworth.
" The love at first sight," writes Madame de Stael,
" which is so seldom deep, so seldom lasting, is of
especially rare occurrence in the case of two people
whose great mutual attraction consists in character."
This is in a great measure true, although many
striking instances to the contrary are quoted in the
present work. But that early love-making is a weak
ness of human nature — not monopolized by any one
VOL. II. B

2 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
class — is forcibly exemplified in the history of our
most highly-gifted and eminent men. In their first
love-affairs they have generally fared like other
mortals,' the same romantic tales, difficulties, and
disappointments happening to them as fall to the
lot of mankind in general.
Dean Alford and his cousin, Fanny Alford, grew
up together as children, and, on the approach of his
fourteenth birthday, Oct. 6th, 1824, we find him
writing to her in a serious strain, very different from
what one would expect of a boy at this early age.
In the following year, after her confirmation, he
again writes to her, and says —
" I need not explain to you the serious nature of
the engagement you have entered into. You will
not be offended if I insert a few short maxims for
behaviour which I once laid down for myself, but,
alas ! I have but badly observed."
Extracts of this kind show that even as a boy he
was interested in his cousin ; and it is not surprising
that, with his early serious turn of mind, this friend
ship should have ripened into love. Eventually they
were betrothed ; and she did not hesitate to remind
him of certain peculiarities of character which she
considered required alteration. Thereupon he writes —
" Never be afraid, Fanny, to tell me what you
have. If for no other reason than that you do so,

EARLY LOVES. 6
I ought to consider you my best earthly friend.
Now, never spare to do so. Whenever you see this
in me, do tell me ; not perhaps at the time, but the
first opportunity afterwards. You are too much
disposed to make allowance for me."
It was this sensible conduct that was an extra
guarantee of their future happiness, and one can
only regret that it is not more common among lovers.
The marriage took place on March 10th, 1835 ; and
writing to his sister-in-law, young Alford says —
" You cannot think how pleasant a thing it is to
have known each other from childhood ; it gives so
much of common interest and retrospects for both to
speak of, and feed affection upon. You should see
her bustling about in the house, or coming down to
me with her bundle of books to be tutorized, with
health and happiness on her rosy cheeks."
As his married life commenced, so it continued ;
and there are few more charming volumes of
biography than that which contains the married life
and correspondence of this eminent scholar.
In his busy life James Brindley had very little
time for friendship, and still less for courtship.
Nevertheless, he contrived to find time for marrying,
though at a comparatively advanced period of his
life ; the young lady who attracted his notice being
only a child when he first saw her. B 2

4 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
In laying out the Grand Trunk Canal, he was
necessarily brought into close connection with Mr.
John Henshall, of the Bent, near New Chapel, land-
surveyor, who assisted him in making the survey.
In the course of these visits Brindley seems to have
taken a special interest in his daughter Anne, then
a girl at school, and, whenever he went to see her
father, he was accustomed to take a store of ginger
bread for her in his pocket. " She must have been
a comely girl," writes Mr. Smiles,1 "judging by the
portrait of her as a woman."
In process of time Brindley's interest for Anne
ripened into an attachment ; and shortly after the
girl had left school he proposed to her, when she
was only nineteen, and was accepted. At this time
Brindley was close upon his fiftieth year, his marriage
taking place on Dec. 8th, 1765, in the parish church
of Wolstanton, where he was described in the register
as " of the parish of Leek, engineer."
Although very young, his wife proved a most
clever, useful, and affectionate helpmate, conducting
for him most of his correspondence. After his mar
riage he resided at Turnhurst, in an old-fashioned
house formerly the residence of the Bellot family,
and which is said to have been the last residence in
England in which a family fool was kept. His wife
1 Lives of the Engineers, i. 467, 468.

EARLY LOVES. 5
was still young when he died, and not long after
wards married again, her death taking place at Long-
port in the year 1826. As Mr. Smiles remarks,
Brindley was " probably one of the most remarkable
instances of self-taught genius to be found in the
whole range of biography. The impulse which he
gave to social activity, and the ameliorative influence
which he exercised upon the condition of his country
men, seem out of all proportion to the meagre intel
lectual culture which he had received in the course
of his laborious and active career."
It must have been in the year 1787, when Cobbett
was about thirty-five years of age, that he first saw
his future wife, Ann Reid. She was the daughter of
an artilleryman, and then only about thirteen ; and
" although so very young, she won his heart in a
twinkling." His courtship quickly prospered, and he
used to boast that, throughout life all his fame, and
all the earthly prosperity which he enjoyed, were due
to this happy choice. They were married on the 5th
Feb., 1792, at Woolwich; and henceforth she was, in
every sense of the word, a valuable helpmate to him,
displaying a courage in adversity which was much to
her credit. When a severe article, for instance, on
military flogging brought him into trouble, for which
he was imprisoned for two years, with a fine of one
thousand pounds, she displayed a noble resignation

6 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
and self-possession, in spite of the sorrow she felt at
the time. Thus, in a letter Cobbett wrote to his
friend, J. Wright, on this occasion, he says —
" I found Mrs. Cobbett very well, and quite pre
pared for what happened. She bears the thing with
her usual fortitude, and takes hourly occasion to
assure me that she thinks I have done what I ought
to do. In this she is excellent. She is the only wife
that I ever saw, who in such circumstances did not
express sorrow, at least, for what the husband had
done ; and in such cases sorrow is only another
word for blame."
At other times she displayed the same self-control,
and by her force of character was in no small measure
instrumental in promoting her husband's success.
When she was little more than a child, John Con
stable became first acquainted with Mary Bicknell.
It was a long engagement, her parents having been
opposed to the marriage from fear of excluding her
name from the will of her grandfather, who was very
wealthy. In the face of such an obstacle, Constable's
only plan was to wait, for, as Mary Bicknell wisely
wrote to him, " We should both be bad subjects for
poverty, should we not ? Even painting would go
on badly, it could hardly survive in domestic worry."
Young Constable could not deny this piece of logic,
and in reply tells her, " We have only to consider our

EARLY LOVES. 7
union as an event that must happen, and we shall
yet be happy."
And happy they eventually were, for the marriage
took place on October 2nd, 1816. In spite of her
youth, Mary Bicknell possessed a good amount of
worldly wisdom, and was ever anxious that Constable
should not waste his time, or injure his prospects ;
writing to this effect — " By a sedulous attention to
your profession, you will very much help to bestow
calm on my mind." She further urges him not to
waste his time, and adds — " .... You will allow
others to outstrip you, and then perhaps blame me.
Exert yourself while it is yet in your power ; the path
of duty is alone the path of happiness. Believe me, I
shall feel a more lasting pleasure in knowing that you
are improving your time, than I should do while you
were on a stolen march with me round the Park."
Somewhat old-fashioned as this advice was, it showed
that the youthful artist had made a wise selection in
this early choice. However young and inexperienced
of the world she might be, her letter notwithstanding
bespoke a wisdom which was well worthy of imitation.
It has been remarked that " the world is probably
indebted for one of its very highest blessings, namely,
the imaginative glory which irradiates its idea of
love, to the fact that the poets, who are mainly the
originators and promulgators of that idea, have had

8 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
this singular capacity for loving, with the full
vehemence of passion, in the innocence and ignorance
of early childhood ; their manhood retaining, amid
all its error and obscuration, the happy memory of
that smokeless flame." In many instances this un
doubtedly has been so, and Bryan Waller Procter,
usually known as " Barry Cornwall," tells us in his
autobiographical sketch, that when his fifth was
running into his sixth year, he was much noticed by
a young person — a female. " I was at that time,"
he adds, " living with an old relative in H  shire,
and I still preserve the recollection of Miss R  's
tender condescension towards me. She was a pretty,
delicate girl, and very amiable ; and I became — yes,
it is true, for I remember the strong feelings of that
time — enamoured of her. My love had the fire of
passion, but not the clay which drags it downwards ;
it partook of the innocence of my years, while it
etherealized me. Whether it was the divinity of
beauty that stung me, or rather that lifted me above
the darkness and immaturity of childhood, I know
not; but my feelings were anything but childish.
By some strong intuition I felt that there was a
difference (I knew not what) that called forth an
extraordinary and impetuous regard."
But this early love soon faded from his sight, for
the young lady died. " The last time I ever saw

EARLY LOVES. 9
her was (as well as I can recollect) in October, or
late in September. I was told that Miss R  was
ill, was very ill, and that perhaps I might not see her
again. Death I could not, of course, comprehend ;
but I understood perfectly what was a perpetual
absence from my pretty friend. Whether I wept or
raved, or how it was, I know not ; but I was taken
to visit her. It was a cold day, and the red and
brown leaves were plentiful on the trees, and it was
afternoon when we arrived at an old-fashioned country
! ... She was sitting (as I entered) in a large
air covered with white, like a faded Flora, and
iking at the sun, but she turned her bright and
look on me, and the pink bloom dimpled on
eek as she smiled and bade me welcome."
soon after this visit that Miss R  died,
tells us nothing of the childish sorrow which
ave followed.
ould seem that the first real love-affair of any
ince happened after his father's death, which
d in the year 1816. Coming into some
y, he took a house in Brunswick Square, and
landsomely upon his new income. In the
y season he stayed at St. Albans, and improved
y excellence as a boxer by taking lessons from
>us pugilist, in addition to which he fell in
love with a Hertfordshire young lady. But from

10 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
the ' Sicilian Story,' which he dedicated to her in
1820, it seems that his passion had subsided into
friendship —
" It may be that the rhymes I bring to thee
(An idle offering, Beauty,) are my last :
Therefore, albeit thine eye may never cast
Its light on them, 'tis fit thine image be
Allied unto my song ; for silently
Thou may'st connect the present with the past.
'Tis fit, for Saturn now is hurrying fast,
And thou may'st soon be nothing, e'en to me.
Be this the record then of pleasant hours
Departed, when beside the river shaded
T walk'd with thee, gazing my heart away,
And, from the sweetest of your garden flowers,
Stole only those which on your bosom faded.
O, why this happiness so short a day ! "
Whatever the nature of this little love romance,
it was soon to be forgotten, for in the following year
he became engaged to Miss Skipper, the daughter of
Mrs. Basil Montagu by her first marriage. On the
7th October, 1824, they were married ; and for nearly
half a century his talented wife, by her brilliant
qualities, made their home one of the principal centres
of London literary society.
At the time of their engagement, Barry Cornwall
was not only beginning to reap success and fame
from his poetical pursuits, but, from his corre
spondence with Miss Skipper, it appears he was a

EARLY LOVES. 11
constant play-goer and man of society. Thus in
one of his letters he says —
" I dined with Mr. Kean, and what little I saw
of him I liked much. He seems very pleasant and
good-natured and unaffected ; yet his features are
much altered, I think, for the worse. They speak
of festivity and such matters, I fear, too plainly.
He knew me. I told him I had been introduced to
him, and he said, ' By the Montagus, I believe ; '
but I said, ' No, by some one in Drury Lane green-
We talked of Dr. Drury, Lord Byron, etc.
L not stay long, being obliged to act Richard
le is going to America again."
r his marriage he returned in earnest to his
ion as a conveyancer, and his wife tells us —
not think that any literary success ever grati-
m so much as when some solicitors on the
; side, pleased with his work, employed him."
'ease his income he took pupils, and amongst
rere Eliot Warburton and A. W. Knight, after-
his life-long friends. As time went on his
of noted acquaintances became wider, and
¦ in 1828, he relates how he and his wife and
lontagu went one evening to Sir Thomas
ice's house, to look over his old drawings, in
ion with which visit he has given us the
following romantic anecdote —

12 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
"During the evening Sir Thomas told us of his
having been taken once to visit a female of extreme
beauty. A friend of his wished him as an artist to
see, and if possible to take a study of, this woman.
He went accordingly, and saw her. She was, he said,
most exquisitely beautiful, perhaps more so than
any person he had ever seen ; but the eye of an
artist is quick at detecting faults, and he saw lurking
among her perfections, or rather peeping out from
among them occasionally, an expression which was
diabolical. He did not like her. Whether he took
any such sketch of her he did not say ; but he
added that he learned afterwards, that ' the lady '
went to live with a young man, whom she entirely
ruined. When in great distress from her extra
vagance, she induced him to commit forgery ; and
when he was taken up for the crime, she appeared
and volunteered her evidence against him ; and
upon Iter evidence he was hanged. Here was a
beauty ! "
Happy in his home, and surrounded by the literary
talent of the day, Barry Cornwall never missed an
occasion for helping others. Indeed, we are told
that " his mere presence was sunshine and courage
to a new-comer into the growing world of letters.
He made it the happiness of his life never to miss,
whenever opportunity occurred, the chance of con-

EARLY LOVES. 13
f erring pleasure and gladness on those who needed
kind words and substantial aid." But, like most
men, he had his domestic sorrows, his grief at the
death of his second son, Edward, who died in his
sixth year, having been recorded in the following
touching verses, which, however, he never printed —
" My best beloved, hast thou fled,
And left me — me who loved thee so,
(Who loves thee still, though cold and dead,)
Beyond what thou didst ever know 1
They tell me that I made thee, dear,
Mine idol, breaking God's great law :
If so, I pay, with bitter tear,
Eor errors that I never saw !
They say that earth is filled with flowers,
That mine may be a happy lot,
That life is rich in sunny hours ;
It may be — but I see them not.
I only see a little shape
That used to cling about my heart,
And never struggled to escape,
And yet it did at last depart.
Oh, happier far art thou than we,
Who wander in the desert, blind !
Thou hast left pain and poverty,
And all the wrongs of life behind.
We strove whilst thou wast here (let's say
Thus much to cheat our sorrow still)
To make thy life one sunny day,
And shield thee, in our hearts, from ill."

14 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
A further terrible sorrow in his later life was the
premature death of his beloved daughter, Adelaide,
who had suddenly taken a very distinguished position
as a poetess; the publication of her Legends and
Lyrics having assumed a high place in popular
estimation. Indeed, an incident which must have
been most deeply gratifying to her father is thus
related by Charles Dickens, in the memoir prefixed
to the later editions of Legends and Lyrics —
"Happening one day to dine with an old and
dear friend, distinguished in literature as ' Barry
Cornwall,' I took with me an early proof of the
Christmas number of Household Words, entitled The "
Seven Poor Travellers, and remarked, as I laid it on
the drawing-room table, that it contained a very
pretty poem, written by a certain Miss Berwick.
Next day brought me a disclosure that I had so
spoken of the poem to the mother of the writer, in
the writer's presence ; that I had no such corre
spondent in existence as Miss Berwick, and that the
name had been assumed by Barry Cornwall's daughter,
Miss Adelaide Anne Procter ! "
It remains only to add that with his increasing
years his friends saw little of him, for he kept to his
home which he loved; his "little journeys to the
haunts of his infancy, in the hope of being able to
discover the house where he had lived, and the school

EARLY LOVES. 15
at which he had learnt his alphabet, being his chief
pleasure. But he did not succeed in finding the
house or the school, which had probably disappeared
in the lapse of eighty years." At last, his end came,
and after a long and honoured career, " crowned
with the blossom of snow-white years," he died. As
Swinburne says in the lines which he composed in
his memory, October 5th, 1874, he was "beloved of
men," and few wives had greater reason to be proud
of their husbands throughout life than the widow he
hind him, and who had so charmingly graced
ne.
g, the Ettrick Shepherd, fell in love when he
t a boy, and therefore had ample opportunity
et his attachment before it was time to marry.
idy who won his affections was Margaret
s, and turning a deaf ear to numberless suitors,
lained constant to him during a long engage-
f ten years. But at times, as his correspond-
ldicates, he seems to have had apprehensions
r, after all his patient waiting, the marriage
ever take place. Thus, in one of his letters,
confess to you that ever since you took the
ion of going home to Nithsdale and leaving
have had a kind of prepossession that some
obstacle would come in the way to prevent our

16 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
union ; and I expect that this obstacle will arise with
your friends. I am so convinced of it that I have
a jealousy of every one of them."
Patience at last was rewarded, and as the wedding
drew near we find him displaying a natural curiosity
about his bride's attire on the eventful occasion. " I
would have you dressed," he writes, " in white
muslin, with a white satin Highland bonnet, with
white plumes and veil. I think this a highly-
becoming dress, and moreover a convenient one, for
I see that married country ladies wear such bonnets
at table instead of caps when visiting."
The marriage took place in April 1820, and turned
out a singularly happy one, rendered no doubt all
the more so by the length of time that the young
couple had waited for each other.
After a long courtship, Leigh Hunt was married, in
1809, to Marianne Kent. Her father had died com
paratively young, and his widow had obtained an
independent livelihood as a dressmaker. When Leigh
Hunt first became acquainted with Marianne, she was
about thirteen years old, and he a struggling author
of seventeen. She was the reverse of handsome,
and without accomplishments ; but she had a pretty
figure, beautiful black hair which reached down to
her knees, and magnificent eyes of which he could
well say —

EARLY LOVES. 17
" From women's eyes this doctrine I derive :
They are the books, the arts, the academies
Which show, contain, and nourish all the world."
When married she was a thrifty and active house
wife, until the curious malady with which she was
seized totally undermined her strength. Leigh Hunt
was a man of hasty temper, and in one of his letters
before marriage he says —
" I am naturally a man of violent passions ; but
your affection has taught me to subdue them. When-
 -du feel any little disquietudes or impatiences
in your bosom, think of the happiness you
on me, and real love will produce the same
on you as it has produced on me. No reason-
son ought to marry who cannot say, ' My love
de me better and more desirous of improvement
have been.' "
glas Jerrold used to say that for the first
five years of his life he was perpetually
ing with poverty. It was during this time
ith studious perseverance, he laid the found-
of his future literary career — winter sunrise
finding the young student with benumbed
, lighting his own fire and trimming his own
But daring in all things, and confident in his
hite-hot energy, he tempted fortune ; and in
the autumn of 1824 he consummated the love of his
VOL. II. c

18 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
boyhood in marriage. The young lady was Mary
Swann, the daughter of Thomas Swann, of Wetherby,
Yorkshire, who held an appointment in the Post
Office. Turning over, in after years, some papers in
a secret drawer in his father's library, his son,
Blanchard Jerrold, came across a sheet of yellow
paper upon which some lines were written. These, it
seems, his father had always treasured, not so much
for their literary value, as for the noble heart that
prompted them. This tattered paper with its faded
writing, sacredly kept as a precious relic for so many
years, was written by no other than his devoted
friend, Laman Blanchard. Some idea of the depth
of this romantic friendship may be gathered from
the fact that "long after he was dead, Douglas
Jerrold's devotion for him was certain to bubble up
• many times in the running out of every year."
" Indeed," writes his son, " he never spoke of this
great friendship that his voice did not falter ; " and
although at times they had quarrelled, " each was so
profoundly known to the other, that they found it
impossible to let their earthly friendship dwindle to
that cool regard which men generally extend, in later
life, to their ' circle of acquaintance.' " Subjoined are
two extracts from the lines addressed to Jerrold by
his friend on his marriage, and which illustrate the

EARLY LOVES. 19
feeling that existed between the two young men,
although much cannot be said for their literary merit.
" And thou art wed ! God knows how well
I wish thee — what I may not tell,
Though all may wish, and waft thee, too,
As much, dear rhyme, as thou canst do.
But trust me, none a purer blessing
Shall breathe upon the mystic hour,
When, pledged in fond and full caressing,
You drain the cup for sweet or sour.
Sweet, sweet the dregless draught must prove —
The wine of life distilled from love ;
A shower of summer dews for thee
In passion — pearls from heaven's sea ;
God's own delicious vital rain,
Like one small fount o'er many a plain ;
The finger's cooling touch, which erst
The rich man ask'd for his tongue of thirst.
Bright drops like those o'er Bhodian forms,
When brain-born Pallas rose, descending
Like molten stars in golden storms,
Young hearts and their idols immortally blending."
" Thy name shall crown the register
Of those that bless and blindly err ;
That follow a promiscuous gleam,
The poet-brain's romantic dream,
And grasp yet miss the glittering bubble,
While hope endears the specious trouble ;
Who brave the winds when others droop,
And fall at once, but cannot stoop ;
Who own no years, all worn and wounded,
But crack like glass and so are dead."
* * # *
Marrying the beloved object of his boyhood, there
c 2

20 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
was every prospect of his life being happy, " and
yet," writes his son, " there were influences at work
to sour the heart of a man of my father's ardent
temperament. His glance was so keen, his sympathies
were so warm, that when he looked abroad upon the
battle of life, and marked its wide vicissitudes of
fortune, its hypocrisies and vanities — its prizes in the
hands of the low foreheads, and its crown of thorns
about the high forehead — when, in his own case, he
saw how poor was the reward of money, or of honour,
vouchsafed to the original thinker — he turned into his
little home in Holborn, where he and his bride lived
with his mother and sister, with a scornful word upon
his lip." It was this early feeling which in a measure
moulded his character ; and it has been remarked
that those who slandered him, " calling him cynic
and begetter of feuds and ill-blood between poor
and rich," did so from a misconception of his
feelings. On the other hand, his son speaks in grateful terms
of the many sunny years passed under his wise and
tender guidance, and adds that, if the world judged
him outwardly " cold, cutting, and sharp," he was
one of those natures which, " in their common inner
world," throb and labour warmly and tenderly.
Thus, writing on January 1st, 1843, to his friend
Mr. Forster, we have an incidental allusion to the

EARLY LOVES. 21
affectionate thoughtfulness which really lay in his
heart. He says —
" A happy New Year to you ! I have at last a
tranquil moment, which I employ in jotting a few
words to you. I should have called, but was sum
moned back to Boulogne, where I found my dear
niece — a lovable, affectionate creature, little less to
me than a daughter — in her coffin. She had died of
typhus fever at school — died in her fourteenth year.
I found my wife almost frantic with what she felt to
be a terrible responsibility ; for we had brought the
child only the last April from her heart-broken
mother, to Boulogne."
And then, again, he had another charming little
incident told of him, so thoroughly home-like, which
is a pleasing illustration of his child-like simplicity.
Returning on one occasion from Ostend, where he
had met Charles Dickens, who was on his way home
from Italy, he brought back with him a large pack
ing-case. " He came eagerly into the house," writes
his son, " and bade me open the case. He stood
over me, his eyes following those of my mother and
sister. He was as excited as a child that has bought
a present for its mother with its pocket-money.
Presently the case was opened, and he lifted out a
beautiful work-box of sandal-wood, decorated with
fine original paintings — a most exquisite piece of art

22 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
and workmanship. He placed it before my mother
with an intensity of delight that I shall never forget.
He looked from one to the other, inviting our en
thusiasm. He felt how his heart and soul had been
in the business when he had bought this present ;
how he had watched it across the water ; how he had
left his luggage behind that he might bear it with
him to his home." If, at times, his conduct was
misunderstood by the outside world, we must take
into account the difficulties against which he had
been forced to contend, calculated, as these were, to
sour and embitter a heart that was at the bottom
most tender and affectionate.
Like Dean Alford and his wife, John Keble and
Charlotte Clarke, at the time of their marriage at
Bisley, on October 10th, 1835, had known one another
from childhood, their parents having been friends.
Hence nothing could be more natural than that the
two young people should eventually become engaged.
Mrs. Keble's health, which had been delicate before
her marriage, caused her husband more or less anxiety
until the close of her life ; but, while he was ever
patient and cheerful under this trial, she "bore very
trying and long sicknesses, not merely with cheerful
resignation, but with bright spirits; and when one
would have thought her unfit for anything but rest
on the sofa, she would be up and at work in the

EARLY LOVES. 23
parish as if she had been in health and strength."
But Keble's unselfish devotion only coincided with
his saintly and beautiful character ; and Sir J. T.
Coleridge tells us that when looking back on the
communications he received from his friend about
the period of his marriage, he could " not help re
calling to mind his exquisite verses on the Fourth
Sunday in Lent" —
" But there's a sweeter flower than e'er
Blushed on the rosy spray ;
A brighter star, a richer bloom
Than e'er did western heaven illume
At close of summer day.
'Tis Love, the last best gift of heaven, —
Love, gentle, holy, pure ;
But tenderer than a dove's soft eye,
The searching sun, the open sky,
She never could endure."
It would be difficult not to suppose that, when
writing these graceful lines, the mind was dwelling
on one whose sweetness of temper and patience were
a living lesson of resignation in spite of ill-health ;
and yet, delicate as she was, she survived her
husband ; and there could be few more touching
incidents than when the sick man was unwillingly
wheeled out of her room, and " they who for so
many years had had but one heart and one mind,
parted for life with one silent look at each other."

24 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
His end soon came ; for it was only two or three
days afterwards that " the mournful family repaired
from his death-bed to her room, and knelt round her
bed and prayed. She besought them to return
thanks for her to God that he had been taken first — ¦
that she, not he, had to bear the trial of surviving ;
but she expressed a hope that she might be released
so soon as to admit of both being buried at the same
time in one grave." Much to the surprise of all,
however, she still lingered in suffering for six weeks,
when the summons came which she so earnestly
desired. And then she was laid by the side of him,
the measure of whose happiness in life she had filled,
ever adorning with grace and lively cheerfulness . his
home ; and never failing, whatever her own heavy
burden of ill-health might be, to support him, some
times in doubt and difficulties, " cheering and giving
him confidence when he too much distrusted himself,
or looked despondingly on efforts he might be making
to accomplish great objects."
When only seventeen, Sir James Mackintosh fell
in love, and soon became a poet in the young lady's
praise, wooing her in prose and rhyme till she re
turned his passion. For three or four years this
amour was the principal object of his thoughts, and
his chief anxiety was to obtain such a moderate
competency as would justify his marriage. Although

EARLY LOVES. 25
this was hast}7 as to time, and improvident in many
ways, it was, as far as the parties themselves were
concerned, a happy one. But it was soon to ter
minate, for the young wife died in childbirth in
April 1797, and the following extract from a beau
tiful and most characteristic letter of Sir James
Mackintosh on this sad and melancholy occasion, has
justly been held as a well-merited tribute of high and
lasting honour to her memory —
" Allow me, in justice to her memory, to tell you
what she was, and what I owed her. I was guided in
my choice only by the blind affection of my youth.
I found an intelligent companion and a tender friend
— a prudent monitress, the most faithful of wives, and
a mother as tender as children ever had the mis
fortune to lose. I met a woman who, by the tender
management of my weaknesses, gradually corrected
the most pernicious of them. She became prudent
from affection ; and though of the most generous
nature, she was taught economy and frugality by her
love for me. During the most critical period of my
life she preserved order in my affairs, from the care
of which she relieved me. She gently reclaimed me
from dissipation ; she propped my weak and irre
solute nature ; she urged my indolence to all the
exertions that have been useful or creditable to me ;

26 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
and she was perpetually at hand to admonish my
heedlessness and improvidence.
" To her I owe whatever I am ; to her whatever
I shall be. In her solicitude for my interest she
never for a moment forgot my feelings or my char
acter. ... I lost her, alas ! (the choice of my youth,
and the partner of my misfortunes) at the moment
when I had the prospect of her sharing my better
days." At an early age Jane Griffies, daughter of a re
spectable tradesman of Liverpool, displayed a great
taste for literary pursuits, especially poetry ; and this
hobby, added to her gentle yet lively manners and
sweetness of disposition, quickly attracted the ad
miration and won the affection of William Roscoe,
the well-known historical biographer, who was him
self only the son of a market-gardener. From the
moment of his engagement to the young lady to
the close of his long and eventful life, he never
found reason to regret the judgment of his
youth .
To promote and encourage her taste for literature,
William Roscoe induced Jane to commence a corre
spondence with him ; which, continuing for many
years, until the period of their marriage, forms an
interesting record of his views and feelings at this
period. Many poetical pieces are scattered through

EARLY LOVES. 27
this correspondence, of which we subjoin a specimen
given in a letter dated May 9th, 1777—
" I must yet copy you a sonnet, if I have room,
which I suppose some of my brethren would call an
extempore, as it has been fabricated in about ten
minutes " —
" 0, my loved Julia ! in whose tender breast
Each fairer virtue ever finds a place,
And every milder charm and softer grace,
With each ennobling passion loves to rest ;
Thou who, in humbler state, can boast a mind,
In loftier spheres that might applauded move,
Yet shrinking from the public gaze, to find
The warmer transports of domestic love —
Like some fair flower, that, hid from human eye,
Pours all its fragrance on the trackless vale,
Has thy unsullied life its vernal glow
Accomplished ; and that happier shepherd I,
For whom kind heaven the treasure did reveal,
Dearer than every gift its kindness could bestow."
At length the period arrived when the state of his
income permitted the union which had so long been
the object of his wishes ; and on the 22nd February,
1781, William Roscoe was married to Jane Griffies,
at St. Anne's Church, Liverpool. For some years
after this event he devoted himself assiduously to
his professional duties, studying a rigid economy.
In the spring of 1782 he visited London for business
purposes, and when there thus wrote to his wife —

28 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
" There is one circumstance which is a continual
mortification to me, viz. the thought that I am not
likely to get anything by my journey, exclusive of
the expenses I have imprudently gone to in buying
things which I might very well have done without.
In books and prints I have spent full as much as I
proposed, but have now put a stop to it, and shall
keep myself within bounds. What I have purchased
besides, I intend to convert into money on my
arrival at Liverpool, which I can do without losing
a farthing." In answer to this letter his wife wrote as follows,
which is an indication of her good common-
sense —
" You seem to consider the present expenses of
your journey as extravagant ; but this I cannot
admit of. You may not have another opportunity
of visiting London again for a long time, and a
little indulgence is only reasonable ; but I perfectly
agree with you as to the necessity of a general
economy. " By a strict attention to it now, we shall open a
path to competence, and to that easy independence so
desirable to us both. When I mention competence,
you know my ideas are not extensive. I only wish
to be in a situation to render a service to others,
without the disagreeable reflection of injuring the

EARLY LOVES. 29
interests of those who depend on us alone. I have
sometimes been afraid you have thought me sordid
and ungenerous ; but, indeed, I never valued money
for itself."
Passages such as these will give some idea of the
truth and sincerity which actuated them both in their
domestic life. It was not only when absence afforded
him the opportunity that he took pleasure in ex
pressing the tenderness, the devotion, and the respect
with which he regarded his wife. Indeed, whenever
an occasion occurred he availed himself of it to offer
to her — generally in verse — some token of his affec
tion. During his absence in London in 1807, for
instance, on parliamentary duties, he missed her
society very much ; for it was to her he had been
accustomed to refer for advice and assistance in every
difficulty, and for sympathy and support under all
the circumstances of his life. Her arrival, therefore,
was welcomed by the following lines — a delicate and
graceful acknowledgment of her high merits —
" Come ! bright example of unaltered truth I
O come, dear partner of my widow'd heart !
Light of my life, companion of my youth,
0 come, and never, never let us part.
O, from that hour that tore me from thy sight,
What harpy griefs have fastened on my breast !
Whilst night consigns to day, and day to night,
The scorpion rods that rob my soul of rest.

30 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
O come ! thy presence shall the clouds dispel,
Thy voice shall soothe me, and thy counsels guide ;
For thou alone canst soothe the tempest's swell,
And snatch me, struggling, from the whelming tide.''
After forty-three years of unbroken happiness they
were parted ; for, notwithstanding the most skilful
medical attention, she died on Sept. 24th, 1824. Her
loss afflicted him sorely ; so much so that, for a time,
his usual literary correspondence was interrupted.
His chief consolation he now found in his family,
whose affection for him was, if possible, drawn closer
by the calamity which, in common with them, he
had sustained. Writing to his friend Dr. Wallich, a
few months after the death of his wife, he adds a
further testimony to her noble qualities —
" Believe, my dear sir, I can most truly participate
in your feelings, in your separation (though temporary
only) from your wife and family, having myself sus
tained, a few months since, the greatest loss I ever
experienced, in the death of my faithful partner, with
whom I lived upwards of forty years in uninterrupted
confidence and harmony."
Lady Georgiana Spencer, popularly known as the
"beautiful Duchess of Devonshire," was the eldest
daughter of John, first Earl of Spencer, and in the
year 1774, at the very early age of seventeen, became
the wife of William, fifth Duke of Devonshire. " It

EARLY LOVES. 31
would be difficult at the present day," says Mr. Jesse,
" to convey a just notion of the sensation which the
beautiful and charming Duchess created in the last
century, or of the influence which she exercised over
the fashion and politics of her time."
Distinguished " by her high rank, her surpassing
loveliness, and the peculiar fascination of ber manners,
surrounding herself with the gay, the beautiful, the
witty, and the wise, Devonshire House, under the
auspices of this charming young creature, presented
a scene of almost romantic brilliancy," which has
rarely been equalled. According to Wraxall's His
torical Memoirs, the personal charms of the Duchess
of Devonshire " constituted her smallest pretension
to universal admiration ; nor did her beauty consist,
like that of the Gunnings, in regularity of features
and faultless formation of limbs and shape : it lay in
the amenity and graces of her deportment, in her
irresistible manners, and the seduction of her society.
Her hair was not without a tinge of red ; and her
face, though pleasing, yet, had it not been illumin
ated by her mind, might have been considered as an
ordinary countenance. In addition to the external
advantages which she had received from nature and
fortune, she possessed an ardent temper, susceptible
of deep as well as strong impressions ; a cultivated
understanding, illuminated by a taste for poetry and

32 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
the fine arts ; much sensibility, not exempt, perhaps,
from vanity and coquetry." Wherever she went her
influence was felt ; and her personal exertions in
favour of Charles James Fox, during the famous
contested election for Westminster in the year 1784,
are well known. Accompanied by her sister, Lady
Duncannon, she visited the abodes of the humblest
among the electors ; she dazzled and enslaved them
by the fascination of her manners, the power of her
beauty, and the influence of her high rank ; and is
known on more than one occasion to have carried
with her the meanest mechanic to the hustings in her
carriage. " The fact of her having purchased the
vote of a stubborn butcher by a kiss," writes Wraxall,
" is undoubted."
" It was probably during the occurrence of these
scenes," he adds, " that the well-known compliment
was paid to her by the Irish mechanic. Gazing with
admiration at her beautiful countenance, he said, ' I
could light my pipe at her eyes.' "
The young Duchess seems to have been deeply
attached to her sister, Lady Duncannon — afterwards
the Countess of Bessborough — who was just as fond
of her, as the following little anecdote, told by
Wraxall, will show — " During the month of July
1811, a very short time before the decease of the
late Duke of Devonshire, I visited the vault in the

EARLY LOVES. 33
principal church of Derby, where repose the remains
of the Cavendish family. As I stood contemplating
the coffin which contained the ashes of that admired
female, the woman who accompanied me pointed out
the relics of a bouquet which lay upon the lid, nearly
collapsed into dust. ' That nosegay,' said she, ' was
brought here by the Countess of Bessborough, who
had designed to place it with her own hands on her
sister's coffin ; but, overcome by her emotions on
approaching the spot, she found herself unable to
descend the steps conducting to the vault. In an
agony of grief she knelt down on the stones, as nearly
over the place occupied by the corpse as I could
direct, and there deposited the flowers, enjoining
me the performance of an office to which she was
unequal. I fulfilled her wishes.' " This touching
anecdote is a stern comment on the ephemeral glory
of even the most beautiful of women !
An amusing anecdote is given by Anthony Trollope 1
of one of his early love troubles while at the Post-
office — " A young woman down in the country had
taken it into her head that she would like to marry
me — and a very foolish young woman she must have
been to entertain such a wish. No young man in
such a position was ever much less to blame than I
had been in this. The invitation had come from her,
1 My Autobiography, i. 63, 64.
VOL. II. D

34 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
and I had lacked the pluck to give it a decided
negative ; but I had left the house within half an
hour, going away without my dinner, and had never
returned to it. Then there was a correspondence —
if that can be called a correspondence in which all
the letters came from one side. At last the mother
appeared at the Post-office. My hair almost stands
on my head now as I remember the figure of the
woman walking into the big room in which I sat with
six or seven other clerks, having a large basket on
her arm and an immense bonnet on her head. The
messenger had vainly endeavoured to persuade her
to remain in the ante-room. She followed the man
in, and walking up the centre of the room, addressed
me in a loud voice — ' Anthony Trollope, when are
you going to marry my daughter ? ' We have all
had our worst moments, and that was one of my
worst. I lived through it, however, and did not
marry the young lady."
James Watt's early and constant attachment to his
cousin, Margaret Miller, ended in his marriage to her
in July 1764. According to his cousin, Mrs. Camp
bell, this marriage had the most beneficial influence
on his character. "Even his powerful mind," she
writes, " sank occasionally into misanthropic gloom,
from the pressure of long-continued serious head
aches, and repeated disappointments in his hopes of

EARLY LOVES. 35
success in life. Mrs. Watt, from her sweetness of
temper, and lively, cheerful disposition, had power to
win him from every wayward fancy ; to rouse and
animate him to active exertion. She drew out all
his gentle virtues, his native benevolence, and warm
affections." But their married life was of short duration, for his
wife died in the autumn of 1773, after having given
birth to a still-born child. Although brief, this
union was, however, one of uninterrupted domestic
happiness ; and Mrs. Watt's untimely death was an
agonizing blow to her husband, as appears from
some of his letters of this period which have been
preserved. Writing to his friend, Dr. Small, he
says —
" Let us rejoice in our youth, for age is dark and
unlovely ; and in the silent grave there is no joy, at
least that I know of. Vive, et vale."
And again —
" You are happy, Small, that have no such con
nection ; yet this misfortune might have fallen upon
me when I had less ability to bear it, and my poor
children might have been left suppliants to the mercy
of the wide world. I know that grief has its period ;
but I have much to suffer first. I grieve for myself,
not for my friend ; for if probity, charity, and duty
to her family can entitle her to a better state, she
D 2

36 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
enjoys it. I am left to mourn. . . . Let me leave
this tale of woe."
On finding that the burden of domestic affairs, and
the care of his children, interfered seriously with his
other pursuits, after having remained for some years
a widower, he married a second time. The lady of
his choice on this occasion was Anne Macgregor.
She was notable for " thrifty and far-seeing habits of
the most enlightened Scotch housewifery;" her passion
for household cleanliness having been carried to such
an extent that her " two little pug-dogs were taught
by her never to cross the unsullied flags of the hall
without wiping their feet on the mats placed at every
door or entrance."
For forty-three years they lived together amidst all
his prosperity and fame, " her various talents, sound
ness of judgment, and strength of mind, rendering
her a worthy companion." But, as his biographer1
remarks, " possibly, in his hours of success and in
fluence, there may have been moments when his
heart throbbed at the retrospect of an earlier time ;
and of an union, in days that were no more, with one
whose loving hopes had sustained him in sorrow,
without being permitted to taste of his joy, and who
had been summoned from his side just as he was
about to emerge from the comparative obscurity in
Muirhead's Life of James Watt, pp. 254, 255.

EARLY LOVES. 37
which he had long so wearily pined. And although,
of course, the sentiment which Beranger has so
musically sung may not have been familiar to Watt ;
yet it may be that the lines below echo his, as they
have clone the thoughts of many others in a similar
position — " ' But she had one charm above thee,
In my youth which I regret : —
Why, alas ! can I not love thee
As of old I lov'd Rosette V "
In the year 1828, Samuel Wilberforce was married
to Emily Sargent, whom he had known from his
childhood. Shortly before the melancholy accident
which occasioned his own death in 1873, being on a
visit in the neighbourhood of Marden — where the
elder Wilberforce had once resided — it was arranged
that the Bishop should take a ride through the Park
with the daughter of his host next morning, for he
loved beyond all things an outing before breakfast, if
it were but a scamper round the garden. " We were
sitting apart," writes the friend who furnishes this
incident, " when Wilberforce suddenly said to me in
his quiet tone, ' I met her there for the first time.
She was thirteen, and I was fifteen, and we never
changed our minds.' " 1 His married life, he used to
say, was the happiest period of his career ; and
1 Quarterly Review, cxlix. 85, 86.

38 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
throughout his diaries and correspondence we find
constant touching allusions to his wife, whose death,
on March 10th, 1841, left a life-long tinge of sadness
on his character.
Thus, " always on returning to Lavington," writes
Canon Ashwell,1 " the first thing was to visit the
churchyard and lay flowers on her grave ; " and after
his last visit thither, on May 31st, 1873, so near to
his own departure, he wrote to his daughter-in-law,
Mrs. R. G. Wilberforce, describing the occasion as
"one never to be forgotten. God's world in its
beauty animate and inanimate around me ; the night
ingales singing His praises ; and all seems to rejoice
before Him. My dead seemed so near to me in my
solitude ; each one following another and speaking
calm and hope to me, and reunion when He will."
Though gone before, she was not lost to his memory ;
and any place or association that revived the memories
of old times kindled a feeling of sorrowful joy in his
heart. Even, too, on his introduction to Court, its grandeur
occasioned sad thoughts, as may be gathered from
the subjoined extract of a letter written to his sister,
and dated Windsor Castle, April 4th, 1844 —
"Many thanks to you for your very kind note.
Yes ; I quite know all those spring feelings. It is
1 Life of Bishop Wilberforce.

EARLY LOVES. 39
the hardest time of all the year. She loved it
so. She opened in it so like some sweet flower.
Always was I looking forward to it. Now I never
look on to it. It seems so indifferent what it is ;
all the short halting-places in life are swept away.
If I could always look on to the end with anything
like a comparatively increased singleness of eye !
But it is most sad going home. If I went home to
her, it was beyond all words. If I went home with
her, I got apart to see her meet the children. And
now — but I ought not to sadden you."
But this steadfast and beautiful devotion only
coincided with the other parts of his life, which was
one of the lovely and saintly ornaments of our
Anglican Church.
" William Wordsworth's marriage, which was founded
on an early intimacy with his cousin, Mary Hutch
inson, was," writes the late Bishop of Lincoln, " full
of blessings to himself," and " admirably adapted to
shed a cheering and soothing influence upon his
mind." In an account of the many charms of his
youthful bride, we must refer to the expressions
poured forth from his heart in some well-known lines
written in the third year of his married life, a stanza
of which we subjoin —
" She was a phantom of delight,
When first she gleamed upon my sight ;

40 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament.
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair ;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair ;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn ;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay."
And then there are the inimitable lines, To a
Painter — lines written after thirty-six years of
wedded life, " and testifying," writes the late Bishop
Wordsworth, " in the language of the heart, that age
does not impair true beauty, but adds new grace to
it ; in a word, that genuine beauty enjoys eternal
youth." " Though I beheld at first with blank surprise
This work, I now have gazed on it so long
I see its truth with unreluctant eyes.
0, my Beloved ! I have done thee wrong,
Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung,
Ever too heedless, as I now perceive :
Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the yoivng,
As welcome, and as beautiful — in sooth
More beautiful as being a thing more holy :
Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth
Of all thy goodness, never melancholy ;
To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast
Into one vision, future, present, past."
In his Autobiographical Memoranda, Wordsworth
thus describes his marriage — "In the year 1802, I

EARLY LOVES. 41
married Mary Hutchinson, at Brompton, near Scar
borough, to which part of the country the family had
removed from Sockburn. We had known each other
from childhood, and had practised reading and spell
ing under the same old dame at Penrith — a remark
able personage, who had taught three generations of
the upper classes principally of the town of Penrith
and its neighbourhood." 1
Hence, as Professor Knight 2 remarks, " there
was an entire absence of romance in Wordsworth's
courtship. He loved Mary Hutchinson ; he had
always loved her ; and he loved her with an ever-
increasing tenderness ; but his engagement to her
seemed somehow to be just the natural sequel to
their early unromantic regard, its development or
flowering." But his practical picture of her many
charms does not seem to have been much exagger
ated ; and most readers of De Quincey's Recollections
will remember his description of Mary Hutchinson in
1807. " She exercised," to quote his words, " all the
practical fascination of beauty, through the mere
compensatory charms of sweetness all but angelic, of
simplicity the most entire ; womanly self-respect and
purity of heart speaking through all her looks, acts,
and movements."
1 Dictated by William Wordsworth, at Rydal Mount, November,
1807. 2 Life of Wordsworth, i. 336.

42 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Wordsworth's sister Dorothy says — " There never
lived on earth a better woman than Mary Hutchin
son." And in her Journal she has given the following
touching account of her brother's marriage —
"On Monday, 4th October, 1802, my brother
William was married to Mary Hutchinson. At a
little after eight o'clock, I saw them go down the
avenue towards the church. William had parted
from me up-stairs. When they were absent, my dear
little Sara prepared the breakfast. I kept myself as
quiet as I could ; but when I saw the two men
running up the walk coming to tell us it was over,
I could stand it no longer, and threw myself on the
bed, where I lay in stillness, neither hearing nor
seeing anything till Sara came up-stairs to me, and
said, ' They are coming.' This forced me from the
bed where I lay ; and I moved, I knew not how,
straight forward, faster than my strength could carry
me, till I met my beloved William, and fell upon his
bosom. He and John Hutchinson led me to the
house, and there I stayed to welcome my dear Mary.
As soon as we had breakfasted we departed. It
rained when we set off. Poor Mary was much
agitated when she parted from her brothers and
sisters and her home. . . . We had sunshine and
showers, pleasant talk, love and cheerfulness. We
were obliged to stay two hours at Kirby while the

EARLY LOVES. 43
horses were feeding. We wrote a few lines to Sara,
and then walked out. The sun shone, and we went
to the churchyard after we had put a letter into the
post-office for the York Herald. We sauntered about
ahd read the grave-stones."
Another charming feature of Wordsworth's married
life was the continued love and regard for his sister.
Indeed, as Prof. Knight remarks, " she who saved him
from despondency, and started him on his career of
devotion to poetry alone, could not but retain to the
last a ' solitary ' place in his regard. The balance of
his nature had been disturbed by the issue of the
French Revolution ; and, despite his consecration to
poetry at Hawkshead in 1787, he was on the point
of renouncing his early love, and going to abstract
mathematical science. It was his sister who brought
him back to the realization of his : office upon earth.'
Was it strange that one who had been thus identified
with him, in the one great crisis of his life, should
remain to the end a part of his very being \ Their
communion, indeed, assumed some strange phases.
It extended to his using her Journal at times for
the materials of his poems, and extracting bits of it
in his letters, not, to save the trouble of composing
himself, but because he could not compose anything
better." With such a guiding influence in his sister, Words-

44 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
worth had, previous to his marriage, been singularly
favoured ; and now in his wife he had the tried love
of a good, self-sacrificing woman —
" A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death ;
* * * #
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command ;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.''

CHAPTER II.
EAELY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.
Lord Abinger — George Crabbe — Allan Cunningham — Erasmus
Darwin — Dean Hook — Edward Irving — Sarah Kemble — ¦
Samuel Lover — John Metcalf — Robert Moffat — Samuel Morley
— Charles Abbott, Lord Tenterden — Robert Southey.
In the history of our most highly-gifted men, it
is noticeable that some in their love-affairs have been
as impetuous as others have been apathetic. But
even the thirst for fame has not absorbed the tender
passions of many of our hard-working men of emi
nence, who have occasionally been precipitate in
marrying. Indeed a "long list of poets, lawyers,
statesmen, and divines might be given, who married
before they were thirty," although these have gener
ally shown more discretion than Shakespeare, who
married Anne Hathaway at eighteen. Washington
and Bonaparte married when they were twenty-seven,
and Nelson followed their example two years later.
To quote further cases. Lord Abinger — eminent as

46 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
one of the most successful advocates in the annals of
the English Bar, who will always be remembered as
having carried advocacy to the highest point of per
fection to which it can be carried as an art — was
married in 1792, when twenty-three years of age, to
Louise Henrietta Campbell, third daughter of Peter
Campbell, of Kilmony in Argyleshire. According to
his Autobiography, " she had been the object of his
early and constant attachment, and had from his first
acquaintance with her exercised a strong influence
over his conduct." In his judicial career she seems
to have been a valued companion, and by her amia
bility and tact to have materially promoted his
happiness. Thus he speaks of " her sweet disposition, divine
temper, and consummate discretion," and adds, " I
lived with her in uninterrupted comfort and happiness
from the time of our marriage to the month of March
1829, and have lived ever since to lament her loss."
Their life was not without its struggles, for after
their marriage he was not only obliged to narrow
very much the circle of his acquaintance, but for
some years " became an obscure plodding lawyer,
seeking by severe industry no other reputation than
that which was to break out upon him in Westminster
Hall." During his early apprenticeship to a surgeon of the

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 47
name of Page, at Woodbridge, George Crabbe was
asked by a friend — a surgeon of the name of Levett —
to go and pay a visit at Framlingham ; " for," said
he, " there is a young lady at Parham that would just
suit you." He was in his eighteenth year, and the
young lady, who afterwards became his wife, was
Miss Sarah Elmy. Hence by this visit his matri
monial lot in life was decided. He very soon began
to pay his addresses to the fair charmer in verse
under the name of Mira. He also wrote a journal,
which he dedicated to her. It commences thus —
April 21st, 1780. — "I dedicate to you, my dear
Mira, this journal, and I hope it will be some amuse
ment. God only knows what is to be my lot," etc.
Some of the passages in this document must have
been far from savoury to her, for he was terribly
pinched for money. Thus, under May 16th, he
writes— " Oh, my dear Mira, how you distress me ; you
inquire into my affairs, and love not to be denied —
yet you must. To what purpose should I tell you
the particulars of my gloomy situation — that I have
parted Math my money, sold my wardrobe, pawned
my watch, am in debt to my landlord, and finally,
at some loss how to eat a week longer ? Yet you
say, tell me all. Ah ! my dear Sally, do not desire it ;
you must not yet be told these things. Appearance

48 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
is what distresses me. I must have dress, and am
therefore horribly fearful I shall accompany fashion
with fasting ; but a fortnight more will tell me of a
certainty." A few days later on he writes —
" The cash, by a sad temptation, greatly reduced ;
an unlucky book-stall presented to the eyes three
volumes of Dryden's works, octavo, five shillings.
Prudence, however, got the better of the devil, when
she whispered to me to bid three shillings and six
pence ; after some hesitation, that prevailed with the
woman, and I carried reluctantly home, I believe, a
fair bargain, but a very ill-judged one.
" It's the vilest thing in the world to have but one
coat. My only one has happened with a mischance,
and how to manage it is some difficulty. A con
founded stove's modish ornament caught its elbow,
and rent it half-way. Pinioned to the side it came
home, and I ran deploring to my loft. In the
dilemma it occurred to me to turn tailor myself, but
how to get materials to work with puzzled me. At
last I went running down in a hurry with three or
four sheets of paper in my hand, and begged for a
needle, etc. to sew them together. This finished my
job, and but that it is somewhat thicker, the elbow
is a good one yet."
Entries of this description were neither cheering

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 49
nor encouraging to a young lady who was naturally
looking forward to the domestic comforts of matri
mony ; nevertheless the engagement, continued, ap
proved of by his relations, and tolerated by hers. But
when Miss Elmy found that George Crabbe's income
was small, and his health bad, she prudently declined
to marry upon nothing.
In his distress, he at last decided on writing to
Edmund Burke, narrating his history, and telling him
that unless he could pay a debt of fourteen pounds
within a week he would be in a debtor's prison.
Burke, although a complete stranger, came to his
rescue, and through this statesman's influence Crabbe's
success in life was assured. Acting on his advice he
took orders, and became chaplain to the Duke of
Rutland, taking up his residence at Belvoir.
With a position and income thus secured, Crabbe
married Miss Elmy in December 1783, and became
curate of Stathern in the year 1785. In course of
time preferment followed, but on the 31st Oct., 1813,
his wife died — a blow MThich happening simultaneously
with other troubles caused him a severe illness. In
the following year, however, he was offered the living
of Trowbridge by the Duke of Rutland, where his
liberality and independence gradually won general
popularity. His son mentions, however, at this time,
flirtations which prove that Crabbe — who had now
VOL. II. E

50 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
become famous and respected — was still sensitive to
feminine charms, and capable of attracting the
devotion of the fair sex.
It was about the middle of the summer of 1811
that Jean Walker, the " Lovely Lass of Preston
Mill," left her native vale to link her fate with Allan
Cunningham, or, as he was often styled, " Honest
Allan," in London. At this time she was twenty
years of age, with fine complexion and bright eyes ;
M'hile intellectually she was sensible, intelligent, and
prudent ; being highly esteemed in society. Mr. S.
C. Hall, an intimate friend, says of her in a memento
written after her death, in the year 1864 — " She was
a charming M'oman in her prime, and must have been
very lovely as a girl. I have never known a better
example of what natural grace and purity can do to
produce refinement. Though peasant-born, she was
in society a lady — thoroughly so. There was not only
no shadow of vulgarity in her manners, there was not
even rusticity, while there was a total absence of
assumption and pretence ; and she was entirely at
ease in the ' grand ' society. Men and women of
rank, as well as those eminent in art, in science, and
in letters, I have met as guests at her house."
The marriage took place at St. Saviour's Church,
Southwark, and notwithstanding the joyous excite
ment of the occasion, Cunningham naively says, that

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 51
he " did not fail to remark that James I., the poet-
king of Scotland, had been married there also, and
that he joined hands nigh the monument of Gower,
and not far from the grave of Massinger." It is
needless to add that the union was a happy one in
every sense of the term, and that his literary career
was equally prosperous ; for, during his married life,
upwards of thirty volumes of prose and poetry flowed
from his pen. Just a month after his marriage, while
" basking in the beams of the honeymoon," he thus
playfully wrote to his friend McGhie —
" And how fares my friend ? Basking in the
beams of the honeymoon of wedlock, I have still so
much time as awakes the pleasant remembrance of
other years. I know you deserved an earlier letter
than this from me, but I excused myself from day to
day, like the wicked in repentance ; and now I am
obliged to write under the pleasant prospect of being
every moment called away. On the whole, George,
with a pleasant and good-hearted woman, you would
prefer it to the lonesome life which late I led . . ."
This letter proves how happy Allan Cunningham
was in his new life ; and well he might be, for the
young couple, blest in each other's love, had the
world before them smiling in hope. From Mr.
Hogg's pleasant picture we have a pleasant glimpse
of their early home. " Beside a ' cosy fire and clean
E 2

52 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
hearthstane ' is Jean Walker sitting on one side and
Allan Cunningham on the other, with a table be
tween them on which a lamp is brightly burning.
She is busy with the needle — darning stockings for
her young husband's comfort, making up some frills
for her own adornment ; and, in anticipation of some
forthcoming event, shaping and sewing certain pieces
of very little apparel, which she would willingly
conceal, or wish not to be noticed. On his side the
mallet and the chisel have been thrown aside for the
day, and he is busy with pencil and paper, cogitating
a new song M'hich he sings or recites aloud for the
gratification of his ' bonnie Jean.' "
But in the summer of the year 1812, Cunningham's
cares increased with his joys — the first of a dis
tinguished family of sons being born — and writing
to his friend Prof. Wilson many years afterwards, he
tells him —
"My life has been one continued struggle to
maintain my independence, and support my M'ife and
children ; and I have, when the labour of the day is
closed, endeavoured to use the little talent which my
country allows me to possess, as easily and as profit
ably as I can. The pen thus adds a little to the
profits of the chisel, and I keep my head above water,
and on occasion take the middle of the causeway with
an independent step." Despite his struggles, few

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 53
men, says his biographer, " ever had such delight in
family and home as he. His love for his wife was
ardent ; and many a tribute of affection he paid her
in after days, as well as when he wooed her in the
woods of Arbigland."
Another early marriage was that of Mary Howard
to Erasmus Darwin, when she was about eighteen
years of age. Judging from all accounts, she appears
to have been a superior and charming woman, and
for thirteen years made her husband an excellent
wife. Four days before his marriage Darwin wrote
a very long and practical letter to his future wife, of
which the following extract is interesting, as certainly
possessing a style peculiarly its own —
"Dear Polly, " As I was turning over some old mouldy
volumes, that were laid upon a shelf in a closet of my
Bed-chamber ; one I found, after blowing the Dust
from it with a pair of Bellows, to be a Receipt Book,
formerly, no doubt, belonging to some good old Lady
of the Family. The Title Page (so much of it as the
Rats had left) told us it was ' a Bouk off verry
monny muckle vallyed Receipts bouth in Kookery
and Phy sicks.' Upon one Page was ' To make Pye-
Cruste ' — in another, ' To make Wall-Crust ' — ' To
make Tarts,' — and at length ' To make Love.' ' This

54 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
receipt,' says I, ' must be curious ; I'll send it to Miss
Howard next Post, let the ways of making be what
it will.' Thus it is :—
'"To make Love. Take of Sweet-William and of
Rose-Mary, of each as much as is sufficient. To the
former of these add of Honesty and Herb-of-Grace ;
and to the latter of Eye-bright and Motherwort, of
each a large handful : mix them separate^, and
then, chopping them altogether, add one Plumb, two
sprigs of Heart's Ease and a little Tyme. And it
makes a most excellent dish, probatum est. Some
put in Rue and Cuckold Pint, and Heart- Chokes, and
Coxcome, and Violents ; But these spoil the flavour
of it entirely, and I even dispose of Sallery, which
some good Cooks order to be mix'd with it. I
have frequently seen it toss'd up with all these at
the Tables of the Great, when no Body would eat of
it, the very appearance was so disagreeable.'
"Then follows 'Another Receipt to make Love,'
which begins — ' Take two Sheep's Hearts, pierce them
many times through with a scewer to make them
Tender, lay them upon a quick Fire, and then taking
one Handful  ' here Time with his long Teeth
had gnattered away the remainder of the Leaf. At
the Top of the next Page, begins ' To make an honest
man.' 'This is no new dish to me,' says I ; 'besides
it is now quite old fashioned ; I won't read it.'

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 55
Then follow'd, ' To make a good Wife.' ' Pshaw,'
Continued I, ' an acquaintance of mine, a young lady
of Lichfield, knows how to make this Dish better
than any other Person in the MTorld, and she has
promised to treat me with it sometime,' and thus in
a Pett threw down the Book, and would not read
any more at that Time. If I should open it again
to-morrow, whatever curious and useful receipts I
shall meet with, my dear Polly may expect an
account of them in another letter.
" I have the Pleasure of your last Letter, am glad
to hear thy cold is gone, but do not see why it should
keep you from the Concert, because it was gone. We
drink your Health every day here, by the Name of
Dulcinea del Toboso, and I told Mrs. Jervis and Miss
Jervis that we were to have been married yesterday,
about which they teased me all the evening. ... I
will certainly be with Thee on Wednesday evening,
the writings are at my House, and may be dispatched
that night, and if a License takes up my Time (for
I know nothing at all about these Things) I should
be glad if Mr. Howard would order one, and by this
means, dear Polly, we may have the Ceremony over
next morning at eight o'clock, before any Body in
Lichfield can know almost of my being come Home.
If a License is to be had the Day before, I could wish
it may be put off till late in the evening, as the voice

56 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
of Fame makes such quick Dispatch with any news
in so small a Place as Lichfield. I think this is
much the best scheme, for to stay a few Days after
my Return could serve no Purpose, it would only
make us more watch'd and teaz'd by the Eye and
Tongue of Impertinence. I shall by this Post apprize
my sister to be ready, and have the House clean,
and I wish you would give her Instructions about,
any trivial affairs, that I cannot recollect, such as
a cake you mentioned, and tell her the Person of
whom, and the Time when it must be made &c. I'll
desire her to wait upon you for this Purpose. Perhaps
Miss Nelly White need not know the precise Time
till the night before, but this as you please. . . . You
could rely upon her secrecy, and it's a Trifle if any
Body should know.
"Matrimony, my dear Girl, is undoubtedly a
serious affair, (if any Thing be such) because it is
an affair of Life.
" But, as we have deliberately determin'd, do not
let us be frighted about this change of Life ; or
however, not let any breathing Creature perceive that
we have either Fears or Pleasures upon this occasion ;
as I am Certainly convinced that the best of con
fidants (tho' experienced on a thousand other occa
sions) could as easily hold a burning cinder in their
mouth as anything the least ridiculous about a new

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 57
married couple. I have ordered the writings to be
sent to Mr. Howard that he may peruse and fill up
the blanks at his Leisure, as it will (I foresee) be
dark night before I get to Lichfield on Wednesday.
"Mrs. Jervis and Miss desire their comps. to you,
and often say how glad she shall be to see you for
a few Days at any time. I shall be glad, Polly, if
Thou hast Time on Sunday night, if thou wilt favour
me with a few Lines by return of Post, to tell me
how thou doest, &c. — My compl. wait on Mr. Howard
if He be returned. My sister will wait on you, and
I hope, Polly, Thou wilt make no scruple of giving
her orders about whatever you chuse, or think
necessary. I told her Nelly White is to be Bride-
maid. Happiness attend Thee ! Adieu from, my
dear Girl, "thy sincere friend,
"E.Darwin."
As already stated, four days after writing this
letter, Darwin's marriage was solemnized, an event
which he never had any occasion to regret. His
life was happy at home, and his ability, as a man of
science, has long made his name a household word.
But the day came when his wife succumbed to a long
and painful illness, during which she was tenderly,
lovingly, and carefully nursed by him. Indeed, Miss

58 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Seward,1 on second-hand authority, has given a long
speech uttered by his wife, and ending with the
words, " he has prolonged my days, and he has
blessed them." This, writes his grandson, the late
Charles Darwin, "is probably true, although every
thing which Miss Seward says must be received with
caution." In the year 1781, eleven years after the death of
his first wife, Darwin married again, selecting as his
second partner the widow of Colonel Chandos Pole,
of Radburn Hall. He had become acquainted with
this lady in the spring of 1778, when she had come
to Lichfield in order that he might attend her
children professionally. From the many MS. verses
addressed to her before their marriage — which are
less artificial than his published ones — it is evident
that he was passionately attached to her, even in the
lifetime of her husband, who died in the year 1780.
On his second marriage he left Lichfield, and, after
living two years at Radburn Hall, he removed iuto
the town of Derby, and ultimately to Breadsall
Priory, a few miles from the town, where he died
in the year 1802.
Anna Delicia was only seventeen years old when
Dean Hook made her acquaintance. In December
1828 he was appointed to Holy Trinity, Coventry,
1 Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin, pp. 11 — 14. 1804.

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 59
and on June 4th, 1829, MTas married. "Beneath her
girlish playfulness and sparkling vivacity of manner,"
writes his son-in-law, " there was a deep fund of
sound practical wisdom and earnest piety."
In February 1829, she wrote a valentine in verse
to a lady with whom Hook was acquainted under the
assumed name of " John Bright." Her handwriting,
although disfigured, was detected ; and, on the verses
being shown to Hook, he composed the following
reply for his friend, which was "in fact the first
approach to an open declaration of his sentiments " —
" Lady, I think that you are right,
When valentines you would indite,
Under fictitious names to write ;
And upon none could you alight
So well appropriate as ' Bright.'
Between yourself and all that's bright,
You thus comparison invite ;
Let us examine then your plight.
Winning the heart of many a knight,
Those soft dark eyes are beaming bright,
And far eclipse the orbs of night ;
The Pseston roses are less bi'ight
Than th' hues which on your cheeks unite.
Upon that neck (itself as bright
As alabaster's purest white)
The locks that hang in ringlets light,
As ebony are black and bright ;
When you are smiling with delight,
Your smile is as the sunbeam bright,
Revealing to the enraptured sight
Those teeth than ivory more bright,

60 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
While the two pouting lips they bite,
And as the coral red, and bright ;
But brighter far, oh, far more bright,
The charms within ! if brought to light,
They'd prove that you're perfection quite :
A mind with wit and talent bright,
A soul so pure, that well it might
Be deemed the soul of angel bright.
Hence, lady, I must deem you right
When you assume the name of Bright."
"It was perfectly true," says his son-in-law,
" ' Brightness ' was eminently characteristic of his
future wife. The freshness and buoyancy of her
spirits never forsook her to the end of her life,
although that life was shortened by care, anxiety,
and toil which overtasked her physical strength."
Indeed, she was no ordinary woman, and was always
looked up to as one on whose judgment her friends
could at all times rely ; and in her husband's house
hold she was " a regulating, controlling principle ;
and without her it is probable he never would have
become what he was, or have accomplished the things
which he did."
Among the incidents recorded of their daily life
we are told how, after settling in a new home, the
house was broken into by burglars, who were probably
tempted by the hope of getting the service of plate
which had been presented to him by his flock in
Birmingham. Not succeeding in robbing the house

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 61
of any valuable contents, the thieves made a singular
and ludicrous mistake, by drinking a quantity of ink
under the impression that it was port wine — a mis
take through which one of the thieves was afterwards
detected by the stains of ink upon his clothes.1
Like most young men, Edward Irving had his
share of love-making ; an amusing reference to which
we find in a letter to his friend Mr. Story, who had
apparently met with some reverse in his career.
At the time of writing, Irving was master of the
new high-class school at Kirkcaldy, and comforts his
friend in the following eccentric fashion —
" I proceed to operate upon your feelings by the
much-approved method of awakening your sympathy
to the much keener sufferings of your humble servant
and correspondent. You must then understand that
in the town or neighbourhood dwells a fair damsel,
whose claims to esteem I am prepared, at the point
of my pen, to vindicate against all deadly. Were
I to enter into an enumeration of those charms which
challenge the world, I might find the low, equal, and
fmrhyming lines of prose too feeble a vehicle to
support my flights. ... I got to know that this
peerless one was prevented from making a promised
visit into the country by a stormy Saturday. I took
the earliest opportunity on the next lawful day of
1 Life of Walter Farquhar Hook, i. 168, by W. R. W. Stephens.

62 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
waiting on her, and hinting, when mamma's ear was
engaged, that I had business at the same village some
of these evenings, and would be most ineffably blessed
to be her protector home, if not also abroad. Would
she consent ? I might ask her mother. In this most
agreeable of all tasks I succeeded better than I
expected. " But alas ! after I thought everything was in a
fair way for yielding me a half-hour's enjoyment, I
was not told till then that another was to be of the
party. This was a terrible obstacle, and how to get
the better of it I could not divine. ... I could do
nothing the whole afternoon but think how happy I
might be in the evening. . . 'Twas a most lovely still
evening ; just such as you could have chosen from the
whole year for the sighs, protestations, invocations,
etc. of lovers. I called on my friend and tried to
get him along with me, in order that I might throw
on his charge the intruder, if she should happen to}
be there. It would not do ; I was forced to go alone]
resolving to make the best of a bad business should^
I be so unfortunate. What, think you, was my
disappointment — what imagination can figure — what
language describe my torment when I found she was!
gone some time ago ! . . . Since that time the un
fortunate subject of the above tragic incident ha^s
consigned every serious study to neglect."

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 63
But Irving's future love-making was a serious and
earnest affair. Not long after she had ceased to be
his pupil, he M7as engaged to Isabella Martin, the
eldest daughter of the parish minister of Kirkcaldy.
The marriage took place on October 13th, 1823 ; and
the character of the lady who was now to cast her
lot with the young preacher has been thus graphically
depicted by Mrs. Oliphant1 —
" She stood by her husband bravely through every
after vicissitude of his life ; was so thorough a com
panion to him, that he confided to her, in detail, all
the thoughts which occupied him ; received his entire
trust and confidence, piously laid him in his grave,
brought up his children, and lived for half of her life
a widow indeed, in the exercise of all womanly
and Christian virtues. If her admiration for his
genius, and the shortsightedness of love, led her
rather to seek the society of those who held him in
a kind of idolatry, than that of friends more likely to
exert upon him the beneficial influence of equals, and
so contributed to the clouding of his genius, it is the
only blame that has ever been attached to her."
In such a choice Irving was more than fortunate,
but it must be remembered, the antecedent history of
his wife was the security for the excellent help-meet
she proved. Her father, the Rev. John Martin, was
1 The Life of Edward Irving, i. 179.

64 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
"an irreproachable parish priest, of respectable learn
ing and talents, and deep piety, living a domestic
patriarchal life in the midst of a little community
under his charge, fully subject to their observation
and criticism, bringing up his many children among
them, and spending his active days in that fatherly
close supervision of moral manners which distin
guished and became the old hereditary ministers of
Scotland." x
Hence her training had been such as to make her
in every way adapted for a minister's wife, and in
this respect she was exactly suited for Irving. How
fully she ansMrered his expectation may be seen
from his correspondence,2 on his first long separation
from her in 1825, after the loss of "little Edward,
their fairest and their first," at the time he undertook
his apostolical journey, leaving his wife to perfect her
sad and slow recovery in her father's house at Kirk
caldy until she and her new-born infant — now doubly
precious — were fit to travel.
Writing from his father's house at Annan, he gives
his wife a touching account of his journey, telling her
how he waded the Yarrow at a certain spot, under the
crescent moon, "where, finding a convenient rock
beneath some overhanging branches which moaned
1 The Life of Edward Irving, p. 62.
2 Ibid. pp. 249—255.

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 65
and sighed in the breeze, I sate me down, while the
wind, sweeping, brought the waters of the loch to
my feet ; and I paid my devotions to the Lord in
His own ample and magnificent temple ; and sweet
meditations were afforded me of thee, our babe, and
our departed boy. My soul was filled with sweetness.
' I did not ask for a sign,' as Colonel Blackadder
says ; but when I looked up to the moon, as I came
out from the ecclesia of the rock, she looked as never
a new moon had looked before in my eyes — as if she
had been washed in dew, which, speedily clearing off,
she looked so bright and beautiful ; and on the
summit of the opposite hill a little light bright star
gleamed upon me, like the bright, bright eye of our
darling. Oh, how I wished you had been with me
to partake the sweet solacement of that moment ! "
Before she was seventeen years of age, Sarah
Kemble — whose beauty had already attracted con
siderable attention — bestowed her affection on William
Siddons, a member of the troupe to which she be
longed. For some time the young couple had seen
much of one another, by rehearsing and acting to
gether, and hence every opportunity had been afforded
them of falling in love— a climax to which her parents
at first made no objection. But when another suitor
of the name of Evans — a Welshman, M'ith three
hundred a year — captivated by her charms and voice
VOL. IL f

66 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
when she sang ' Robin, sweet Robin,' offered his hand,
they revoked their consent, and dismissed Siddons
from the company, anxious to marry their daughter
to so eligible a lover as Mr. Evans appeared to be.
The young actor, however, had resource to a method
of revenge which was at any rate novel ; for, when
taking a farewell benefit at Brecon, he took the
audience into his confidence, and in the worst kind
of doggrel, informed them of his woes — a specimen of
which we subjoin —
" Ye ladies of Brecon, whose hearts ever feel
For wrongs like to this I'm about to reveal,
Excuse the first product, nor pass unregarded,
The complaint of poor Colin, a lover discarded.
Yet still on his Phyllis his hopes were all placed,
That her vows were so firm they ne'er could be effaced ;
But soon she convinced him 'twas all a mere joke ;
But duty rose up, and her vows were all broke.
Dear ladies, avoid one indelible stain,
Excuse me, I beg, if my verse is too plain ;
But a jilt is tlte devil, as has long been confessed,
Which a heart like poor Colin's must ever detest."
How a girl of any spirit, as Mrs. Kennard rightly
says,1 " could forgive a lover for thus exposing her
private affairs, and how a girl of any artistic ap
preciation could forgive a lover of such bad verses
and take him back into her good graces, is surprising."
It may be that she considered the ringing box on the
1 Mrs. Siddons, p. 20.

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 67
ears, with which her mother rewarded the poetical
efforts of young Siddons as he left the stage, sufficient
punishment for his foolish conduct. But she loved
him still ; and some verses she wrote showed that
she was as superior to him in poetical taste as she
proved herself afterwards in dramatic power —
" Say not, Strephon, I'm untrue,
When I only think of you.
If you do but think of me
As I of you ; then shall you be
Without a rival in my heart,
Which ne'er can play a tyrant's part.
Trust me, Strephon, with thy love —
I swear by Cupid's vow above,
Nought shall make me e'er betray
Thy passion, till my dying day.
If I live or if I die,
Upon my constancy rely.''
Eventually, in spite of all social obstacles, William
Siddons successfully pleaded his cause, and the
marriage took place at Coventry, Nov. 26th, 1773.
" The happy domestic life that succeeded," writes
Mrs. Kennard, " was undoubtedly a great safeguard
amidst the dangers and difficulties of her life, saving
her from much that is the ruin of her less protected
sisters. In the days of her success, when her would-
be admirers and lovers were legion, her husband's
ear was the one to which she confided all the
incidents of attempted gallantry invariably attending
F 2

68 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
an actress's life; and many were the hearty laughs
they indulged in together over them."
Despite little misunderstandings Mrhich must arise
now and then between most people who see much of
one another, her married life was happy to the end ;
although, even in her case, it would seem that
rumour was busy in declaring that latterly she and
her husband did not agree — a report which no doubt
principally originated in his residing at Bath for his
rheumatism, while the exigencies of her profession
necessitated her living in London. On one occasion,
when he gave way without any real cause to an
unseemly ebullition of temper, she wrote the following
note, Dec. 16th, 1804—
" I am really sorry that any little flash of merri
ment should have been taken so seriously ; for I am
sure, however we may differ in trifles, we can never
cease to love each other. You wish me to say what
I expect to have done. I can expect nothing more
than you yourself have designed me in your will.
Be (as you ought to be) the master of all, Moiile
God permits ; but, in case of your death, only let me
be put out of the power of any person living. This
is all that I desire ; and I think that you cannot but
be convinced that it is reasonable and proper.
" Your ever faithful and affectionate,
" S. S."

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 69
Within four years of the time this letter MTas
written, Mr. Siddons was seized with a violent attack
of illness, and died on March 11th, 1808 ; in allusion
to M'hich mournful event she wrote thus feelingly to
Mrs. Piozzi —
" How unMrearied is your goodness to me, my dear
friend ! There is something so awful in this sudden
dissolution of so long a connection, that I shall feel
it longer than I shall speak of it. May I die the
death of my honest worthy husband ; and may those
to M'hom I am dear, remember me when I am gone
as I remember him — forgetting and forgiving all my
errors, and recollecting only my quietness of spirit
and singleness of heart. Remember me to your dear
Mr. Piozzi. My head is still so dull with this stunning
surprise that I cannot see what I write. Adieu !
dear soul ; do not cease to love your friend. "S. S."
Thus ends the story of Mrs. Siddons' married life ;
and when it is remembered how these eventful
years of her life were mostly spent amidst the
intoxication of applause and the flattery of an
appreciative public, wq cannot but admire her strict
adherence to an almost rigid decorum in public
behaviour and private life, whereby, like David
Garrick, she helped to raise " a profession that had

70 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
hitherto been despised and looked upon as one un
befitting a modest woman or an honourable man, into
a position of respectability and consideration."
In his Reminiscences, Samuel Lover tells us that
his heart was first surrendered to a fair English girl
in Dublin. Fate, although averse to their wishes,
softened her severity so far as to permit them to
indulge a friendship which continued to the close
of life. But, in the year 1827, having made his
mark in literature, and established his reputation
as one of the leading miniature painters in Dublin,
he married a Miss Berrel, the daughter of an archi
tect, an amiable and cultivated woman, who was
well adapted to soothe his impulsive tendencies, and
to fortify him when exposed to " the feverish excite
ment, the keen anxieties, and the sudden and bitter
disappointments to which all literary and artistic
effort is exposed." l
His marriage and steady increasing income soon
enabled him to reciprocate some of the courtesies he
was so constantly enjoying ; and his home soon be
came a reunion for much of the wit and talent of the
day. The result, we are told, was so agreeable that
"it seems to have inspired him with the notion of
keeping a common-place book, in which he could
note from time to time some of the pleasantry and
1 Life of Samuel Lover, i. 116, 117. Bayle Bernard.

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 71
cleverness that used to circulate about him." But
this resolve was soon abandoned, and the book was
only reopened after a lapse of thirty years, "to
wring a sad sigh from its owner of the vanity of
good intentions."
His married life, which was one of unbroken happi
ness, closed, to his great sorrow, during his visit to
America in the year 1846, for at New York he
received the sad tidings of his wife's death. His
pain had been great in leaving her — a course to
which only the most stringent motives had compelled
him ; " and little doubt," adds Mr. Bernard, " would
be felt upon the point, could I lift the veil of privacy,
and transfer from his Journal the touching expressions
of his grief and desolation." For a time this affliction
robbed him of all power of exertion ; but at length
reflection and a sense of duty roused him to a right
view of his conduct ; he regained his self-possession ;
and once more continued his travels.
On returning to England, after an absence of two
years, he contemplated taking a rest, so that he might
leisurely think over and prepare his plans for the
future. This repose, however, was soon at an end,
and, his strength renewed, he resumed his active life.
But another domestic trial ere long befell him. His
youngest daughter had lately married, and shortly
afterwards, her sister, a very interesting girl, was

72 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
snatched from him by consumption in her one-and-
twentieth year. "Endowed with many endearing
qualities, both of mind and disposition, she was all
that remained to him of the home he had possessed
on leaving England, and her loss was one of the
severest, of the most unnerving trials of his life,"
depriving him for a time of all capacity for work.
But fortunately for his health and peace of mind,
he contracted a second marriage in January 1852,
with Miss Mary Wandby, the daughter of William
Wandby of Coldham Hall, Cambridgeshire, a lady
"whose taste and refinement were as capable of
estimating his talents as her other and higher
qualities could insure his happiness generally."
Notwithstanding the mischievous tricks and youth
ful wTildness of John Metcalf, the famous road-maker,
" there must have been," writes Mr. Smiles, " some
thing exceedingly winning about the man, possessed
of a strong, daring, bold, and affectionate nature."
We are not therefore surprised to learn that the
daughter of the landlord of the 'Granby' fairly fell
in love with blind Jack, and married him, much to
the disgust of her relatives. When asked how it
was that she could marry such a man, her woman
like reply was —
" Because I could not be happy without him ; his
actions are so singular, and his spirit so manly

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 73
and enterprising, that I could not live without
him." But, after all, adds Mr. Smiles, Dolly was not so
far wrong in her choice as her parents thought her.
As the result proved, Metcalf had in him elements
of success in life which, even according to the world's
estimate, made him eventually a very " good match,"
and the woman's clear sight in this case stood her
in good stead.
At the early age of twenty, when missionary enter
prise had fired the heart of young Robert Moffat with
the determination to devote his life in this heroic
cause, it was his good fortune to meet with one whose
views coincided with his own, causing them soon
to become deeply attached to one another. Mary
Smith, a few months his senior, accordingly announced
her decision to become his helpmate in the following
letter, which she wrote to his parents from Manchester,
Dec. 16th, 1818, nearly two years after his departure
for Cape Town in January 1817 —
" Doubtless you will be surprised to be addressed
thus by an entire stranger ; but though personally
unknown, you are dear to me for the sake of your
beloved son Robert. If you have received a letter
from him lately, you will perhaps know in what
relation I stand to him ; but as I think it very
probable that your letter may have miscarried, I

74 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
cannot but feel deeply anxious that you should know
of his welfare. I received a letter from him about ten
days ago, dated April and May 1818, in the former
of which he states that he sent by the same oppor
tunity a letter for you, and also one for my father,
but as this has never come to hand, I fear that yours
also may have met with some delay, if it is not
entirely lost.
" It is not only the probability of this circumstance
which induces me to write to you, but also a desire
to communicate to you, that, after two years and a
half of the most painful anxiety, I have, through the
tender mercy of God, obtained permission of my dear
parents to proceed, some time next spring, to join
your dear son in his arduous work.
" The idea of parting for ever with my beloved
family appears almost too much for myself. Some
times I think I shall never get launched on the ocean
before grief weighs me down ; but such are my con
victions of duty, that I believe were I to remain here
another year, it would then be out of my power to
go, for I must sink under the weight of an accusing
conscience, when I consider Robert's peculiarly trying
situation, and the strong affection which he seems to
bear to me. When he last wrote he was exceedingly
well, very happy in his work, but quite alone ; seldom
sees a white face."

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 75
The idea of parting Math their child was an intense
grief to Mary Smith's parents ; and a letter which
she subsequently wrote on Dec. 18th, 1818, while
indicating her deep love for them, is a touching
proof of her strong sense of duty.
" You will be well aware that the struggle in my
own breast is very great ; yes, it is so much so, that
I dare not reflect closely upon it. If I could rest,
surely I should be tempted to do it on your account.
But no, my convictions of duty are so strong that,
were I to remain at home, I should surely sink under
the weight of an accusing conscience. . . . And oh,
mother, will it not gladden your heart if the Lord
permit me to enter into His work ? I say, will it not
gladden your heart if the Lord has made you the
mother of at least one child who was so highly
honoured as to be an instrument in His hands, how
ever humble, of doing something, towards the con
version of the heathen 1 Oh, mother, were I a
mother I should esteem it the greatest honour which
could be conferred on me or my child. I should
think it an ample compensation for all the self-denial
I was called to exercise.
" I think I need not fear that you doubt my
natural affection by thus leaving father and mother.
No, surely my dear mother knows me better than
that ; she is well aware of the pangs that my feeble

76 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
nature will feel when the last hour arrives : surely
her own will not be more violent. Nothing but
Divine power can support me in such an hour."
It was several months before a suitable opportunity
occurred for her journey to the Cape — passenger-
ships not running at regular and frequent intervals
as nowadays. But it was at last arranged that she
should sail for her new home under the care of the
Rev. W. Beck, a minister of the Dutch Church, and
his wife.
On the 24th August, 1819, she left London for
Cowes, where the passengers were to embark ; and
just a fortnight later she wrote her last farewell letter
to her parents from English ground. She had a
prosperous journey ; and writing from Cape Town,
Dec. 8th, says —
"Having parted from you all, my affection felt
weaned from the world ; 'and there being an un
certainty whether on my arrival here my dear friend
would be alive, I felt prepared for anything. But
oh ! my cup of happiness seems almost full. Here
I have found him all that my heart could desire,
except his being almost Mrorn out with anxiety ; and
his very look makes my heart ache. Our worthy
friend Melville met me on board, and conducted me
to his house, where a scene took place such as I never
wish to experience again."

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 77
Robert Moffat also wrote, an extract from whose
charming letter we also quote —
" Mary, my own dear Mary, is now far distant
from a land endeared to her, being the place which
gave her birth, and which still contains a circle of
friends who are entwined round her heart ; but more
especially endeared as the residence of you, dearer
than all besides. She is now separated from those
scenes and from you ; but let this comfort you, that
although in a land of strangers, she is under the care
of our ever-present God, and united to one who speaks
as he feels when he promises to be father, mother, and
husband to Mary, and will never forget the sacrifice
you have made in committing to his future care
your only daughter."
They were married on Dec. 27th, 1819, in St.
George's Church, and at once commenced that de
voted sphere of missionary life which has made their
names justly honoured and revered. For over fifty
years they laboured together, " finishing her course "
in 1872, when Moffat wrote to his old friend and
fellow-worker, Roger Edwards, of Port Elizabeth, as
follows — ¦
" The black border has, I presume, already told its
tale, that I am in affliction. Yes, it is even so ; for
the wife of my youth, the partaker of my joys and
sorrows for more than half a century, has been taken

78 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
from me. She is gone to the many mansions to which
she has been daily looking forward with the full
assurance of faith for more than sixty years. . . .
The last words she spoke, about an hour before
she expired, were begging me to go to bed, as Jeanie's
presence would suffice. As she said she could not sleep
till I should go, I only hid myself for a few minutes.
She did fall asleep, but it was the sleep of death." x
Eleven years afterwards, in 1883, Moffat was laid
in the grave, and he, as the Times remarked in the
notice of his death, "has left an abiding name as a
pioneer of modern missionary work in South Africa."
" Before you go, I must introduce you to my two
nieces, the Misses Hope, of Liverpool." When these
words were addressed to Samuel Morley by Mr.
Wilson, treasurer of Highbury College, little did he
think that introduction was to win him his wife.
Indeed, in that interview, which we are told was
"long and delightful," he was undoubtedly much
impressed with Rebekah Maria Hope; and in 1841
she became his wife. Her father was a Liverpool
banker. " And what manner of man he was in his
home life," writes Mr. Hodder,2 " may be inferred
from certain of his letters which, in the event of his
1 The Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat, by their son, John S.
Moffat. 2 The Life of Samuel Morley, pp. 170, 171.

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 79
death, were, he said, to be regarded as his last
wishes. Thus in one letter he exhorts his children " on all
occasions to consult their mother's wishes, and to act
on them, so far as they may consist with their own
deliberate judgment." He also charges them, " as
they have any respect for the memory of their father,
to seek each other's welfare, to bear with each other's
failings ; kindly and never hastily to check each other's
errors ; to aid each other diligently in beginning and
carrying on business, and in the choice of prudent,
amiable, and pious partners for life ; and finally, to
live in love and in peace with each other especially,
and with all around them, that the God of love and
peace may be with them, and may bless them."
Brought up under such training, it is not sur
prising that Samuel Morley found Rebekah Hope's
feelings and ideas congenial with his own. Hence,
on that bright May morning when they were married
in Lady Glenorchy's Chapel, Matlock, there was not
a happier man in England than Samuel Morley.
" And well it might be," adds Mr. Hodder, " for it
was a love-match pure and simple ; and it was love
built upon the strongest foundation — mutual confid
ence in heart and purpose." In addition to her
virtues, Rebekah Hope was endowed with singular
personal beauty ; and a friend has described her as

80 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
" a lovely young wife — one of the sweetest pictures
of my own young days."
Under such auspices their new life was full of the
sweetest promise ; and, as after years showed, their
marriage was a step well taken ; for she was ever a
zealous helpmate in his busy, active life.
One little incident of their honeymoon, recorded
by Mr. Hodder, is amusing. They arranged to spend
their first Sunday in Bath, for the purpose of hearing
the celebrated Rev. William Jay preach in Argyle
Chapel. On this occasion the building was crowded,
and Samuel and Rebekah Morley, so recently "joined
together," were somewhat unceremoniously " put
asunder" — Samuel being put in a pew in the rear
of his wife — his whereabouts being unknown to her.
The subject of Mr. Jay's discourse was the " history
of Isaac and Rebekah." On coming to the words in
the narrative, " And they called Rebekah, and said
unto her, Wilt thou go with this man ? And she
said, I will go," he remarked, " There is many a
Rebekah who has said too hastily, ' I will go with
the man ! ' "
Scarcely were the M'ords spoken when a hand was
laid on Mrs. Morley's shoulder, and she was aware of
the proximity of her husband.
As it commenced, so the beautiful home life of
Samuel Morley ended; and throughout it was, we

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 81
are told, the ideal of what married life should be —
for he always regarded his wife's presence as the
sunshine of his domestic circle. Hence there is
something peculiarly pathetic in his closing hours as
described by his biographer — " On Saturday the 4th
September (1886), when Mrs. Morley went into his
room he looked up, and holding out both his hands,
exclaimed, 'How bright you look!" Then he be
came very drowsy ; and soon after midnight, in the
first still hour of the Sabbath morning, the tired heart
ceased to beat.
For some years before it was made known to the
family, a mutual attachment had existed between
Charles Abbott — afterwards Lord Tenterden — and
Mary Lamotte, whose father resided at Basildon.
Having received from her a lock of hair, this revived
his poetical ardour ; and, aided by his superior culture,
young Abbott wrote some lines entitled, The answer
of a lock of hair to the inquiries of its former mistress ;
— this poetic effusion describing how the lock of hair,
whilst guarding the heart of her lover, makes an
important discovery-
" For in this heart's most sacred cell,
By love enthron'd, array' d in grace,
I saw a fair enchantress dwell
The sovereign of the place ;
And as she smil'd her power to view,
I straight my former mistress knew.
VOL. II. G

82 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Then, lady, cease your tender fears ;
Be doubt dismissed ! adieu to care !
For sure this heart through endless years
Allegiance true will bear,
Since I all outward foes withstand,
And you the powers within command."
After patiently waiting for some time, the rising
lawyer ventured to mention the subject of marriage
to the lady's father, Mrho quickly asked him "for a
sight of his rent-roll " ; to which he replied, " Behold
my books and my pupils." Convinced of the young
lawyer's industry and ability, John Lamotte consented
to the engagement with his daughter, and before
long they were married. Although of very different
dispositions, they lived harmoniously and happily
together, for he ever held her in the highest respect.
Whereas he was remarkably plain and simple in
his attire, his wife was extraordinarily fond of finery,
the artificial brilliancy of her complexion having been
the cause of much mirth, and many ill-natured stories
on the part of the lawyers. Thus Lord Campbell
tells a mischievous anecdote of her artistic
powers —
" Once while paying me a visit in my chambers
in Paper Buildings, the walls of which were of old
dark oak MTainscot, he said, ' Now, if my wife had
these chambers she would immediately paint them,
and I should like them the better for it.' " His affection

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 83
for her was warmly returned, and throughout their
married life she was tenderly attached to him.
After their marriage he took a small house in
Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and with the exception
of giving a dinner to a few lawyers now and then,
saw little other company. Some years after their
marriage, being at Shrewsbury, upon the circuit,
Charles Abbott wrote the following letter to his wife,
which gives us an insight into the happiness of their
domestic life ; and as Lord Campbell remarks,1 "places
him in a very amiable point of view." It is dated
March 27th, 1798, and runs thus —
"My dearest Love,
" I have just received and read your kind
letter, which I had been expecting near half an hour.
The inhabitants of any country but this would be
astonished to hear that a letter can be received at
the distance of one hundred and sixty-six miles on
the day after its date, and its arrival calculated within
a few minutes. As the invention of paper has now
ceased to be a theme of rejoicing among poetical
lovers, I recommend them to adopt the subject of
mail coaches. They have only to call a turnpike-road
a velvet lawn, and change a scarlet coat into a rosy
mantle, and they may describe the vehicle and its
journey in all the glowing colours of the radiant
1 Lives of the Lord Chief Justices, iii. 280, 281. G 2

84 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
chariot of the God of Day. And that no gentleman
or lady may despair of success in attempting to
handle this new subject, I have taken the pains to
write a few lines, which a person of tolerable ingenuity
may work out into a volume —
" In rosy mantle clad, the God of Day
O'er heaven's broad turnpike wins his easy way ;
Yet soon as envious Night puts out his fires,
The lazy deity to rest retires.
But sure his robes with brighter crimson glow,
Who guides the mail-coach through the realms below.
And greater he who, fearless of the night,
Drives in the dark as fast as in the light.
Sweet is the genial warmth from heaven above,
But sweeter are the words of absent love.
Then cease, ye bards, to sing Apollo's praise,
And let mail-coachmen only fill your lays.
"You see my verses are very stiff, but recollect
that husbands deal more in truth than in poetry. In
truth, then, I am very happy to hear that you, my
dearest Mary, and our beloved little John, are so much
better, and in truth I am very happy to think that
our circuit is almost over, and that in a few days
I shall embrace you both. Unless I am detained
beyond my expectation I shall certainly have the
pleasure of dining with you on Monday. I have
brought a box of Shrewsbury cakes to treat the
young gentleman when he behaves well after dinner."
Two years later on he enclosed the subjoined verses

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 85
in a letter to his wife, while on the circuit at Here
ford. If not displaying any great literary merit, they
are a pleasing picture of his home life, and as such
have a special interest.
" In the noise of the bar, and the crowds of the hall,
Tho' destined still longer to move,
Let my thoughts wander home, and my memory recall
The dear pleasures of beauty and love.
The soft looks of my girl, the sweet voice of my boy,
Their antics, their hobbies, their sports ;
How the houses he builds her quick fingers destroy,
And with kisses his pardon she courts.
With eyes full of tenderness, pleasure, and pride,
The fond mother sits watching their play ;
Or turns, if I look not, my dulness to chide,
And invites me like them to be gay.
She invites to be gay, and I yield to her voice,
And my toils and my sorrows forget ;
In her beauty, her sweetness, her kindness, rejoice,
And hallow the day that we met.
Full bright were her charms in the bloom of her life,
When I walked down the church by her side ;
And, five years past over, I now find the wife
More lovely and fair than the bride."
A strange feeling of happiness, mingled Math
sadness, must have been experienced by Robert
Southey and his bride, Edith Fricker, on their
marriage in Redcliffe Church, Bristol, Nov. 14th,
1795. At the church door there was a pressure of
hands, and they parted with full hearts, silently, and

86 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
in tears — Mrs. Southey to take up her abode in
Bristol with his friend Cottle's sisters, still calling
herself by her maiden name — her husband to cross
the sea on his way to Lisbon, with his uncle, Mr.
Hill. At this period, it is true, Southey had little
right to marry, for when he sought Edith and asked
her to become his wife before his departure, he was
virtually penniless. Indeed, he was at a loss how to
pay the marriage fees, and buy the wedding-ring ;
for oftentimes during previous weeks he had walked
the streets dinnerless, no pence in his pocket, no
bread and cheese at his lodgings. He was therefore
in no marrying position, and if his friend Cottle had
not lent him the money for the ring and the license
it is doubtful whether even his marriage could have
taken place. But once having secured Edith as his
wife, he agreed to go abroad, that he might learn
foreign languages, and read foreign poetry and
history. Unpropitious as the present seemed to the
young couple, " powers more benign leaned forward
to brood over the coming years, and to bless them.
It was decreed that his heart should be no homeless
wanderer ; that, as seasons went by, children should
be in his arms, and upon his knees. It was also
decreed that he should become a strong toiler among
books." : 1 Southey, p. 43. Edward Dowden.

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 87
On his return from the Continent he stayed for a
short time in this country, and on going back to
Lisbon took his wife with him, who, although at first
opposed to the idea of residing abroad, soon became
reconciled when she saw the vine-trellised walks, and
the lovely by-lanes, with their blossoming olive-trees,
roses, and oranges.
In 1801 they returned to England, and eventually
settled at Keswick. And some idea of the happiness
of his home may be gathered from the following,
written in 1809 —
" I have five children ; three of them at home, and
two under my mother's care in heaven." He then
goes on to say — " Bertha, whom I call Queen Henry
the Eighth, from her likeness to King Bluebeard,
grows like Jonah's gourd, and is the very picture of
robust health ; and little Kate hardly seems to grow at
all, though perfectly well. She is round as a mush
room button. Bertha, the bluff queen, is just as grave
as Kate is garrulous. They are inseparable playfellows,
and go about the house hand-in-hand." Among the
inmates of his home, to overlook Nelson and Bona
Marietta, with their numerous successors, would,
writes Professor Dowden,1 be a grave delinquency.
"To be a cat was to be a privileged member of the
little republic to which Southey gave laws. A house,
1 Southey, pp. 96, 97. 1879.

88 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
he declared, is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment
unless there is in it a child rising three years old— a
kitten rising six weeks ; ' kitten is in the animal
world what the rosebud is in the garden.' Lord
Nelson, an ugly specimen of the streaked, carroty, or
Judas-coloured kind, yet withal a good cat, affec
tionate, vigilant, and brave, was succeeded by
Madame Bianchi, a beautiful and singular creature,
white, with a fine tabby tail. 'Her wild eyes were
bright and green as the Duchess de Cadaval's emerald
necklace.' "
Although the maintenance of this home was entirely
dependent on Southey's pen, anxiety about his worldly
affairs never caused him a sleepless night ; but the
same did not apply to his wife, for upon her the cares
of this life fell more heavily. Sorrow, too, however
imperceptible its influence might seem, left its mark
unconsciously upon her, although she quietly managed
everything in her husband's home until the sadness
of afflictions made her helpless. But no one could
have appreciated the joys and pleasures of his home
more than Southey, saddened at times as these were
by sickness and bereavement. Indeed, how dearly
his heart rested in his home only his own words can
tell— " Oh dear, oh dear ! there is such a comfort in
one's old coat and old shoes, one's own chair and own

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 89
fireside, one's own writing-desk and OMTn library —
with a little girl climbing up to my neck, and saying,
' Don't go to London, papa ; you must stay with
Edith ! ' — and a little boy whom I taught to speak
the language of cats, dogs, cuckoos, jackasses, &c,
before he can articulate a word of his own. There is
such a comfort in all these things, that transportation
to London for four or five weeks seems a heavier
punishment than any sins of mine deserve."
And yet amidst all the bright sunshine of his
Keswick home, clouds were to gather round it, and
Southey was to lose his boy Herbert in 1816. How
deep his devotion was is amply proved by his con
duct at this trying time, and Mary Barker, who
watched over the little patient, thus writes —
" Herbert ! that sweetest and most perfect of all
children on this earth, who died in my arms at
nine years of age, whose death I announced to his
father and mother in their bed, where I had prayed
and persuaded them to go. When Southey could
speak, his first words were, ' The Lord hath given,
and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name
of the Lord ! ' Never shall I forget that moment."
Poor Southey, the very pulses of whose heart
had played in unison with the sound of his son's
laughter, felt in his early death as if he had passed
at once from boyhood to the decline of life, pathetic-

90 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
ally remarking that "the head and flower of my
earthly happiness is cut off." At the same time,
he added, "I am not unhappy," for "I have abundant
blessings left; for each and all of these I am truly
thankful; but of all the blessings which God has
given, this child, who is removed, is the one I
still prize the most."
Soon time, the great healer of sorrow, did much
to dissipate his sorroMr, although, by a strange irony
of fate, it was all renewed ten years afterwards
with dread exactness; for in July 1826, Isabel,
" the most radiant creature that I ever beheld or
shall behold," passed away. Once more the sunlight
of his love was darkened ; and on the day when
the body of his bright Isabel was laid in the grave,
Southey's courageous heart fairly gave way. In
solitude the tears flowed ; and although the names
of his lost ones were never openly uttered, " each
one of the household had, as it were, a separate
chamber in which the images of their dead ones
lay, and each went in alone and veiled."
Great as these domestic losses were, yet, as the
years passed by, the gloom still hung over his
home, and he was to experience another terrible
calamity, for on October 2nd, 1834, he writes —
" I have been parted from my wife by something
worse than death. Forty years she has been the

EARLY COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 91
life of my life ; and I have left her this day in a
lunatic asylum."
At such a trying crisis he tried, as far as possible,
to forget his wretchedness by steadily pursuing his
M7ork, and when in the spring of the following year
it was found that the poor sufferer might return to
spend the short remaining time that was allotted
to her on earth in her home, it was marvellous, we
are told, how Southey, although no longer happy,
could be contented and cheerful, and take pleasure
in the pleasures of others. But the end was not
long delayed, for his wife gradually wasted aM'ay,
growing weaker and weaker, and died on the 16th
Nov. And so closed the long union of forty years,
which whilst bringing much happiness had throughout
been tinged with sorrow. Henceforth his life, even
when he recovered from his wife's death, and had
married Caroline Bowles, was one of subdued happi
ness ; and, as Prof. Dowden says, " if any future
lay before him, it Mras a cloud lifeless and gray."
His second marriage was in every way suitable,
because he had known Caroline Bowles for twenty
years ; and having long been in constant correspond
ence with her, a warm and lasting friendship had
sprung up between them. What little remained of
life he therefore gave to her, and she, by her literary
tastes and sympathetic heart, used all her influence

92 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
to cheer what otherwise would doubtless have been
a forlorn and cheerless existence.
Some idea of her high character may be gathered
from the womanly letter she wrote to him when
his life was daily drawing near the end —
" I bless God that you are supported, as you
assuredly are, by Himself. What arm but His could
bear you up under the crushing M^eight you are
appointed to bear ! But for His sake do not think
of sending from you your dear filial comforters.
You say you sometimes think you should be as
wTell without them. It would be a tempting of
Providence to isolate yourself so unnaturally."

CHAPTER III.
UNHAPPILY MARRIED.
William Beckford — Lady Blessington — Lord Bolingbroke —
William. Carey — Thomas Carlyle — Mrs. Hemans — Hon. Mrs.
Hervey — Elizabeth Inchbald — Elizabeth Landon — Dr. Parr
— Samuel Richardson — Charlotte Smith — Laurence Sterne —
Wm. M. Thackeray — Duke of Wellington — Wm. Whitefield.
Ill-assorted marriages have been only too frequently
productive of unhappiness in after life. In many
cases the power of beauty has proved an insurmount
able attraction, but, unaccompanied by refinement
and intellectual tastes, has failed to retain its in
fluence. When this is so, the absence of sympathy
has made itself felt, resulting in a spirit of ennui
which has developed into discontent. Equally a
source of failure has been disparity of position, as
in the case of the famous Hooker, who married his
landlady's daughter. Unfortunately for him, she was
a shrew, and his married life was the reverse of
happy. Indeed in how many ways married life

94 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
has proved a failure is instanced in the following
pages. William Beckford, MTith his princely fortune and
distinguished position, when twenty-three years of
age married Lady Margaret Gordon, sole surviving
daughter of Charles, fourth Earl of Aboyne, on
May 3rd, 1783. But courted by the fashionable
world, and spoilt by flattery, he was not long
satisfied with the sweet simplicity of domestic life,
although his home was provided Math every luxury,
and adorned by a lady at its head who was dis
tinguished for her refined and graceful presence.
In his twentieth year he had written and published
his Vathek, an Arabian Tale, which procured for him
to his dying day the name of Vathek Beckford.
It is "a voluptuous picture of the sensual crimes
and impious ambition of an Eastern monarch, whose
soul, at the conclusion of the tale, is damned to
all eternity for his vices of lust and arrogance, into
which he has been seduced by a Giaour." 1 The
work, although of decided literary merit, clearly
indicates what the young author's tastes were at
this time ; and it must ever be a matter of regret
that, with his high intellectual abilities and in
fluential position, he should have so completely
given way to the grosser passions of human nature.
1 Jeaffreson's Novels and Novelists, i. 398.

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 95
Indeed, one of his father's earliest friends, when
asked to supply materials for his memoirs, replied,
" I think it a great pity one should be written ; so
much of the darker side, if truly written, had better
be left in oblivion."1 It was truly a dishonoured
life, and one which, while it might have been
instrumental in causing an immense deal of happi
ness, produced much wretchedness and sorrow.
Perhaps one of the most pathetic pictures of Beck-
ford's wasted life was that which Byron2 drew of
the palace which he built in Cintra, so soon to be
in ruins. " There thou, too, Vathek ! England's wealthiest son,
Once form'd thy Paradise, as not aware
When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,
Meek Peace, voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.
Here didst thou dwell, here scenes of pleasure plan,
Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow ;
But now, as if a thing unblest by Man,
Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou !
Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow
To halls deserted, portals gaping wide ;
Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how
Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied ;
Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide."
The early history of Lady Blessington, the " brilliant
countess," gave rise at the time to many sensational
scandals, which were more or less romantic. Born
1 Jeaffreson's Novels and Novelists, i. 396.
2 Childe Harold. Canto i.

96 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
somewhere about 1790, it is said Margaret Power
was forced by her father, when little more than
fourteen, into a marriage with a man she detested —
Captain Maurice St. Leger Farmer, then of the 47th
Regiment of Infantry. According to another account,
it was a love-match, her father- in-laMT having promised
to give the bride — who was in her sixteenth year —
the sum of one thousand pounds, not a farthing of
which was ever paid. The husband having nothing
but his pay, they soon became overwhelmed in debt,
which necessitated his selling his commission and
entering the service of the East India Company. As
his wife refused to accompany him to India, he sailed
to join his regiment, and never beheld her again.
From time to time he entreated her to join him, but
on his return home he found his wife completely
estranged from him.
Four months after his death, which resulted in his
falling from a window in a state of intemperance, she
married the second Viscount Mountjoy, and first Earl
of Blessington, whose first wife had been his former
mistress. This nobleman had a rent-roll of some
£30,000 per annum ; and his new wife, it is said,
blazed like a meteor upon the fashionable societv of
the West End. " The Blessingtons' splendid mansion
in St. James' Square soon became the rendezvous of
the ttite of London. Celebrities of all kinds of

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 97
distinction ; the first literati, statesmen, artists,
eminent men of all professions, in a short time became
habitual visitors at the abode of the new-married
lord and lady." Among the noblemen who sought
her acquaintance was the Comte de Grammont, after
wards Due de Guiche, and his celebrated relative,
Comte Alfred d'Orsay. But after three or four years
the noble couple were wearied of this splendid hos
pitality, and breaking up their London establishment
in the year 1822, they started for the Continent. In
the following year they met Lord Byron at Genoa ;
who, as might be expected, was much taken by the
wit and beauty of his fair visitor ; but, owing to his
devotion to the Countess Guiccioli, he does not seem
to have paid her as much attention as she desired ;
although, it is true, he urged Lord Blessington and
his wife to prolong their stay, and to take a pretty
villa near Genoa, called " II Paradise"
For some time they remained on the Continent,
dazzling the world by their extravagance and life of
pleasure, which received a check by the sudden death
of Lord Blessington in 1829. Left with an income
of about £2000 a year, Lady Blessington settled in
London, first at Seamore Place, Mayfair, and after
wards at Gore House, Kensington, increasing her
resources by the aid of her pen.
At this epoch, we are told, " there were three
vol. n. H

98 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
centres of fashionable society in London, where all
that had acquired celebrity in literature, art, or social
talent were wont to congregate. These were severally
presided over by three remarkable women — the
Countess of Blessington, Lady Holland, and the
Countess of Charleville — the rival queens of the in
tellectual life of London." Here, in the house which
had been the quiet home of Wilberforce, Lady Bles
sington presided queen of a brilliant court, " composed
of all that was witty or distinguished among at least
the masculine notorieties of London." It was here, to
quote the words of her biographer, she became " ac
customed to an atmosphere of adulation. . . . The
swinging of the censer before her face never ceased
in those salons, soft accents of homage to her beauty
and her talents seldom failed to be whispered in
her ear, while she sat in that well-known fauteuil of
hers, holding high court in queenly state — ' the most
gorgeous Lady Blessington.' . . . She lived for dis
tinction on the stage of literary society, before the
footlights, and always en scene."
In the meantime her novels and literary productions
appeared in quick succession, which helped to keep
her name prominently before the world; for these,
whilst they displayed no great amount of original
talents, were smartly written, and showed her know
ledge of the world. But such an extravagant life as

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 99
Lady Blessington led was destined to empty a far
larger purse than she possessed, and in the spring of
1849 the inevitable crash came; Howell and James
putting in an execution for a debt of £4000. The
auction which followed created intense excitement.
"Every room," writes Dr. Madden, "was thronged.
The well-known literary saloon, in which the con
versazioni took place, was crowded, but not with
guests. The arm-chair, in which the lady of the
mansion was wont to sit, was occupied by a stout,
coarse gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, busily
engaged in examining a marble hand extended on a
book, the fingers of which/ were modelled from a cast
of those of the absent mistress of the establishment.
People, as they passed through the room, poked the
furniture, pulled about the precious objects of art and
ornaments of various kinds that lay upon the table,
and some made jests and ribald jokes on the scene
they witnessed. It was a total smash ; a crash on a
grand scale of ruin ; a compulsory sale in the house of
a noble lady ; a sweeping clearance of all its treasures."
The sale realized upwards of £13,000, the Marquis
of Hertford being the purchaser of Sir Thomas
Lawrence's famous portrait of Lady Blessington for
£336 — about four times its original price. It is un
necessary to follow further the career of this remark
able woman, whose attractions had possessed such a
H 2

100 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
weird fascination for most men. After this terrible
crash she went to Paris, and on June 3rd, the same
year, moved into luxurious apartments in the Rue du
Cirque, Champs Elys^es, but on the following day
just twenty years after the Earl, her husband, had
experienced his fatal seizure, she too was seized with
apoplexy, and died in the arms of her medical
attendant. A wretched tale of domestic misery was that of
Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. But what else
could be expected % His life was notoriously dissolute.
Prior to his marriage he carried on, amongst others,
an intrigue with an orange girl, who hung about the
lobby of the Court of Requests ; and when twenty-
two, a woman whose beauty was a tradition in London
circles of fashion, even as late as the clays of Gold
smith, but whose extravagance had already completed
the ruin of three lovers, had been under his protection.
To extricate him, if possible, from his entanglements,
his relatives suggested that he should take a wife, and
offered in the event of his marriage to settle on him
the family estates in the counties of Wilts, Surrey,
and Middlesex — a proposal to which he acceded.
Accordingly at the close of the year 1700, he was
married to Frances Winchercombe, a lady possessed
of considerable personal attractions, daughter of one
of the co-heiresses of Sir Henry Winchercombe, a

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 101
descendant of Jack of Newbury. Swift, writing to
Stella, says — " Lady Bolingbroke came down while
we were at dinner, and Parnell stared at her as if she
were a goddess." But, as it has been often remarked,
the married life of youthful libertines has been the
same in all ages. St. John returned her affection,
which was on more than one occasion in the course of
his eventful life very touchingly evinced, at first with
indifference, and subsequently with contempt. The
conclusion of fifteen years of domestic misery, aggra
vated by his studied neglect and shameless infideli
ties, found her still clinging to him — " a little fury
if they mention my dear lord without respect, which
sometimes happens."
His connection, however, with the Marquise de
Villette at Marcilly so disgusted her that she became
not only entirely estranged from him, but altered her
will, leaving him nothing when she died, in the year
1718. Few marriages could have been more wretched
— the record of a lovable and devoted life thrown
away on a man who was lost to every sense of honour
and delicacy of feeling.1
Among the interesting and valuable lives that have
been written of late years may be noticed that of the
eminent missionary, William Carey, who " became
the most extensive translator of the Bible, and civilizer
1 See Quarterly Review, 1880, cxlix. 16, 17.

102 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
of India."1 The son of a weaver, and himself a
village shoemaker, it Mras his honourable distinction
to be the father and founder of modern missions.
To quote the words of Robert Hall, this " extra
ordinary man, who, from the lowest obscurity and
poverty, without assistance, rose by dint of unrelent
ing industry to the highest honours of literature,
became one of the first of Orientalists, the first of
missionaries, and the instrument of diffusing more
religious knowledge among his contemporaries than
has fallen to the lot of any individual since the
Reformation ; " a man who united " with the most
profound and varied attainments the fervour of an
evangelist, the piety of a saint, and the simplicity of
a child." In nothing, too, was Carey's beautiful nobility so
seen as in his relations woth his first wife, "above
whom grace and culture had immeasurably raised
him, while she never learned to share his aspirations,
or to understand his ideals." It was his misfortune
to have a wife who was deficient in education, of
intellectual inferiority to him, and entirely out of
harmony with his tastes. Hence, as might be ex
pected, from the first day of his early married life,
he had never known the delight of daily converse
with a wife able "to enter into his scholarly pursuits,
1 Life of William Carey, by George Smith; 1885.

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 103
and ever ready to stimulate him in his heavenly
quest." But this was not his only trouble ; for the early
hardships of Calcutta, and fever and dysentery, clouded
the last twelve years of her life with madness. And
yet never did reproach or complaint escape his lips,
but, as a tender nurse and guardian, he watched over
the helpless woman many a time when " he would
fain have lingered at his desk, or sought the scanty
sleep which his jealous devotion to his Master's
business allowed him."
At last the end came, and in a letter to his eldest
boy, who had left for Burma in the year 1807, the
sad father wrote thus —
"Your poor mother grew worse and worse from
the time you left us, and died on the 7th December,
about seven o'clock in the evening. During her
illness she was almost always asleep; and, I suppose,
during the fourteen days that she lay in a severe
fever, she was not more than twenty-four hours
aM'ake. She was buried the next day in the missionary
buryin g- ground. "
But if Carey's first marriage was unhappy, the
second one, with Charlotte Emelia, the only child
of the Chevalier de Rhumohr and the Countess of
Ahlfeldt, was the exact reverse. It brought a long-
wished-for sunshine into his home, and was a source

104 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
of unalloyed brightness such as had not been his joy
hitherto to know. For thirteen years of unbroken
happiness the union lasted, until the dearly-prized
wife was removed by death in her sixty-first
year. Intellectually, she was a highly superior woman,
and was specially talented in learning languages.
She made herself acquainted with Bengali, that she
might be as a mother to the native Christian families ;
and in her leisure she read such Protestant writers as
Saurin and De Moulin. Of a cheerful mind, and full
of resources for the employment of her time, she did
not allow herself to fret at her enfeebled health — her
wakefulness, when a sickly girl of fifteen, having
saved the whole household from destruction by fire,
although she herself in consequence had become so
disabled as never to be able to walk up or doMoi-
stairs afterwards.
In spite of this painful affliction she was not
depressed, but concentrated her whole thoughts on
her husband's welfare, who " was doing a work for
India and for humanity equalled by few, if any,"
being his counsellor as far as she possibly could.
On one occasion, when they were separated through
her seeking a change for health, she wrote to him
some of the most tender and charming love-letters, of
which the folloMang is a delightful specimen —

unhappily married. 105
" My dearest Love,
" I felt very much in parting with thee,
and feel much in being so far from thee. ... I
am sure thou wilt be happy and thankful on account
of my voice, which is daily getting better, and thy
pleasure adds greatly to my own.
" I hope you will not think I am writing too
often ; I rather trust you Mall be glad to hear of me.
. . . Though my journey is very pleasant, and the
good state of my health, the freshness of the air, and
the variety of objects enliven my spirits, yet I cannot
help longing for you. Pray, my love, take care of
your health that I may have the joy to find you well.
" I thank thee most affectionately, my dearest love,
for thy kind letter. Though the journey is very
useful to me, I cannot help feeling much to be so
distant from you ; but I am much with you in my
thoughts. ... I felt very much affected in parting
with thee. I see plainly it would not do to go far
from you, my heart cleaves to you. I need not say
(for I hope you know my heart is not insensible)
how much I feel your kindness in not minding my
expense for the recovery of my health. You will
rejoice to hear me talk in my old way, and not in
that whispering manner.
" I find so much pleasure in writing to you, my
love, that I cannot help doing it. I was really

106 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
disconcerted by Mrs.  laughing at my writing so
often ; but then, I thought, I felt so much pleasure
in receiving your letters, that I may hope you do
the same. I thank thee, my love, for your kind
letter. I need not say that the serious part of it
was welcome to me ; and the more, as I am deprived
of all religious intercourse. ... I shall greatly
rejoice, my love, in seeing thee again ; but take care
of your health, that I may find you well. I need not
say how much you are in my thoughts day and
night." Frank and genuine expressions of loving thought-
fulness like these give a clear and vivid picture of
her character, and completely coincide with the fol
lowing remarks of Dr. Culross, who, referring to her
death, thus writes —
" During the thirteen years of her union with Dr.
Carey, they had enjoyed the most entire oneness of
mind, never having a single circumstance which
either of them wished to conceal from the other.
Her solicitude for her husband's health and comfort
was unceasing. They prayed and conversed together
on those things which form the life of personal
religion, without the least reserve ; and enjoyed a
degree of conjugal happiness while this continued
in each other, which can only arise from a union of
mind grounded on real religion."

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 107
With such a helpmate, it would be impossible to
exaggerate the invigorating influence which she must
necessarily have exercised over Dr. Carey whilst carry
ing on his arduous, and at times truly anxious work.
The story of Thomas Carlyle's married life, it has
been stated, is a striking instance of three lives irre
parably injured by the error of one. The facts, we
are told, were these : — On October 17th, 1826, Carlyle
married Jane Baillie Welsh, the daughter of the laird
of Craigenputtock, to whom he had been introduced
at Haddington, in 1821, by Edward Irving. It
appears that she and Irving had already given their
hearts to each other ; but the gifted orator was
already engaged to a Miss Martin, and was held to
his vow. It is true that Jane Welsh married Carlyle
with esteem and affection, but not with passionate
love. But of Carlyle's love for her there can be no
doubt, in spite of the friction that afterwards helped
to spoil their domestic life. Such is the story of his
marriage. At first they lived in a small house at Edinburgh ;
but it was uphill work. An introduction to Francis
Jeffrey, who succeeded Sydney Smith in the editor
ship of the Edinburgh Review, was an important
event in his life ; for it was to him he owed the
support and constant kindness which really kept him
from destitution ; and to the Edinburgh under Jeffrey

108 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
he contributed his famous articles on Jean Paul, on
Goethe, and others. According to Carlyle, Jeffrey
" became universally famous, especially in Dumfries
shire, by his saving from the gallows one ' Nell
Kennedy,' a country lass who had shocked all Scot
land, and especially that region of it, by a wholesale
murder, done on her next-door neighbour and all his
household in mass, in the most cold-blooded and
atrocious manner conceivable to the ablest artists
in such horrors." He adds, that Jeffrey rose " into
higher and higher professional repute from this time ;
and to the last was very celebrated as what his
satirists might have called a ' felon's friend.' "
The acquaintance with Jeffrey soon ripened into
intimacy ; and in his Reminiscences, while speaking
in a charming manner of his wife, Carlyle also takes
occasion to tell us of the little editor's great admir
ation for her. " . . . . He was much taken up wTith
my little Jeannie, as he well might be : one of the
brightest and cleverest creatures in the whole world ;
full of innocent rustic simplicity and vivacity, yet
with the gracefullest discernment, calmly natural de
portment ; instinct with beauty and intelligence to
the finger-ends ! He became, in a sort, her would-be
openly declared friend and quasi-lover ; as was his
way in such cases. He had much the habit of flirting
about with women, especially pretty women, much

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 109
more the both pretty and clever; all in a weakish,
most dramatic, and wholly theoretic way (his age now
fifty gone) ; would daintily kiss their hands in bidding
good morning, offer his due homage, as he phrased it ;
trip about, half like a lap-dog, half like a human
adorer, with speeches pretty and witty, always of
trifling import. I have known some women (not the
prettiest) take offence at it, and awkwardly draw
themselves up, but without the least putting him
out. . . .
" My little woman perfectly understood all this sort
of thing, the methods and the rules of it ; and could
lead her clever little gentleman a very pretty minuet,
as far as she saw good. I believe he really enter
tained a sincere regard and affection for her, in the
heart of his theoretic dangling; which latter continued
unabated for several years to come, with not a little
quizzing and light interest on her part, and without
shadow of offence on mine, or on anybody's. Nay,
I had my amusements in it too, so naive, humorous,
and pretty were her bits of narratives about it, all
her procedures in it so dainty, delicate, and sure —
the noble little soul ! Suspicion of her nobleness
would have been mad in me ; and could I grudge
her the little bit of entertainment she might be able
to extract from this poor, harmless sport in a life so
grim as she cheerfully had with me ? My Jeannie !

110 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
oh, my bonny little Jeannie ! how did I ever deserve
so queen-like a heart from thee ? Ah me ! "
What prettier picture of domestic confidence and
honest love could be depicted ? He, noble-hearted,
trustful ; she, for his sake, accepting the innocent
attentions of a man whose friendship, she knew, was
all important to her husband. And yet, with such
qualities on either side, their life was not altogether
happy. Carlyle's affection, shown as it was by letters of
extreme tenderness, and by many unequivocal
symptoms, was "unfortunately too often masked
by explosions of excessive irritability, and by the
constant gloom increased by his complete absorption
in his work. There can be no doubt that Mrs.
Carlyle sincerely loved her husband, though she is
reported to have said that she had married 'for
ambition,' and was miserable. But her childlessness
left her to constant solitude, and her mind preyed
upon itself. The result was that a union, externally
irreproachable and founded upon genuine affection,
was marred by painful discords, which have been
laid bare with unsparing frankness. Carlyle's habit
of excessive emphasis and exaggeration of speech has
deepened the impression."1
On the other hand, in reading Mrs. Carlyle's
1 Diet, of Nat. Biog., ix. 115. Leslie Stephen.

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. Ill
letters, one can scarcely understand that misunder
standing between them was possible, for so many
of them are full of earnest womanly tenderness and
thoughtfulness. Writing, for instance, from Liverpool on July 15th,
1844, she says —
" Oh, my darling, I want to give you an emphatic
kiss rather than to write. But you are at Chelsea,
and I at Seaforth, so the thing is clearly impossible
for the moment. But I will keep it for you till I
come, for it is not with words that I can thank you
adequately for that kindest of birthday letters and
its small enclosure — touching little key ! I cried
over it, and laughed over it, and could not sufficiently
admire the graceful idea."
Equally touching is the following extract of a
letter dated Seaforth, July 14th, 1846 —
" Not a line from you on my birthday, the post
mistress averred. I did not burst out crying, did
not faint — did not do anything absurd, so far as I
know ; and with such a tumult of wretchedness in
my heart as you, who know me, can conceive. And
then I shut myself in my own room and fancied
everything that was tormenting. Were you, finally,
so out of patience with me that you had resolved
to write to me no more at all ? Had you gone to
Addiscombe, and found no leisure there to remember

112 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
my existence ? Were you taken ill, so ill that you
could not write ? " But there was a letter after all,
the postmistress having overlooked it, and she adds
— " I wonder what love-letter was ever received with
such thankfulness ! Oh, my dear, I am not fit for
living in the world with this organization. I am
as much broken to pieces by that little accident as
if I had come through an attack of cholera or typhus
fever." In her letters edited by Mr. Froude, lately published,
we find continued similar expressions of deep tender
ness and affection, in reading which one cannot but
wonder that there should ever have been any cause
for the sinister reports that were circulated about
their domestic happiness. At any rate, her corre
spondence seems somewhat contradictory, seeming to
indicate to the outside observer a deep regard for,
and interest in, her husband's welfare, which were
a proof, to say the least, of her loving anxiety for
him. Thus, a few weeks before her sad and sudden
death, in a letter dated April 2nd, 1866, she says —
" Dearest, " By the time you get this you will be out
of your trouble, better or worse, but out of it, please
God, and if ever you let yourself be led or driven
into such a horrid thing again, I will never forgive

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 113
you — never ! What I have been suffering, vicari
ously, of late days is not to be told. If you had
been to be hanged, I don't see that I could have
taken it more to heart. This morning, after about
two hours of off and on sleep, I awoke long before
daylight, to sleep no more. While drinking a glass
of wine and eating a biscuit at five in the morning,
it came into my mind, ' What is he doing, I wonder,
at this moment ? ' And then, instead of picturing
you smoking up the stranger chimney, or anything
else that M'as likely to be, I found myself always
dropping off into the details of a regular execution.
Now they will be telling him it is time ! — now they
will be pinioning his arms, and saying last words !
Oh, mercy ! was I dreaming or waking 1 — was I mad
or sane ? Upon my word, I hardly know now. . . .
That you have made your ' address,' and are alive,
that is what I long to hear, and, please God ! shall
hear in a few hours."
On the day of her death, which took place suddenly
on April 21st, 1866, as she was driving in Hyde
Park, she wrote to him, commencing —
" Dearest, "It seems 'just a consuming of time' to
write to-day, when you are coming the day after to
morrow. But ' if there were nothing else in it ' (your
VOL. II. i

114 LOVES and marriages of eminent persons.
phrase), such a piece of liberality as letting one have
letters on Sunday, if called for, should be honoured
at least by availing oneself of it. All long stories,
however, may be postponed till next week." 1
But that was not to be. She was buried in the
choir of Haddington Church, and the following words
are written on her tombstone —
" In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are com
mon ; but also a soft invinciblity, a clearness of discernment, and
noble loyalty of heart, which are rare. For forty years she was
the true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband, and by act
and word unweariedly forwarded him, as none else could, in all of
works that he did or attempted. She died at London, 21st April,
1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life
as if gone out."
" Biographers have not permitted us to know dis
tinctly," writes William M. Rossetti, "whether or
not the conjugal life of Mrs. Hemans was happy ;
at any rate, it was a short one." Felicia Dorothea
Browne, when only nineteen years of age, married
the man of her choice, Captain Hemans, of the 4th
(or King's Own) Regiment — an officer not rich in
purse, although possessing advantages both of person
and education.
Felicia has been described as a bewitching girl,
distinguished from her cradle by extreme beauty and
precocious talents. Her sister, in describing her
1 See Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle.

unhappily married. 115
personal appearance at the age of fifteen, speaks of
" the full glow of that radiant beauty which was
destined to fade so early." She must have, there
fore, been endowed with considerable attractions ;
and at the time of her marriage was, no doubt, "a
bewitching girl." After their marriage they resided
at Daventry, in Northamptonshire, where her husband
was adjutant to the county militia, removing to
Bronwylfa that they might live Math Mrs. Hemans's
own family.
But in the year 1818 — having been married only
six years — Captain Hemans made up his mind to
go to the south of Europe for the sake of his health,
and departed for Rome just before the birth of his
fifth son. Curious to say, this parting proved to be
a final one ; even the many charms of his young
wife not being sufficient to keep him in this country,
while she was not disposed to break up her home
associations and go abroad. From the reticent hints
given in her Memoirs by her sister, Mrs. Hughes, it
may be gathered that the separation between Captain
and Mrs. Hemans depended partly upon considera
tions of family obligation, and partly upon special
circumstances not clearly indicated, but apparently
reflecting more or less on the marital deportment of
the Captain.1
1 See Rossetti's Lives of Famous Poets, p. 335. I 2

116 loves and marriages of eminent persons.
Such a life-long separation must have sprung from
some deep-rooted cause unknown to the outside
world. "It has been alleged," writes Mrs. Hughes,
" and with perfect truth, that the literary pursuits
of Mrs. Hemans, and the education of her children,
made it more eligible for her to remain under the
maternal roof than to accompany her husband to
Italy. It is, however, unfortunately but too well
known that such were not the only reasons which
led to this divided course. To dwell on this subject
would be unnecessarily painful ; yet it must be stated
that nothing like a permanent separation was con
templated at the time ; nor did it ever amount to
more than a tacit conventional arrangement, which
offered no obstacle to the frequent interchange of
correspondence, nor to a constant reference to their
father in all things relating to the disposal of her
boys. But years rolled on — seventeen years of
absence, and consequently alienation ; and, from this
time to the hour of her death, Mrs. Hemans and her
husband never met again."
And yet in spite of what must have been a great
domestic trial, Mrs. Hemans, whilst a deeply affec
tionate and tender mother, pursued her career as
a popular poetess, although " marked out for an early
grave, towards which she progressed with a lingering
but undeviating rapidity — calm in conscience, bright

UNHAPPILY married. 117
and cheerful in mind, full of faith and hope for
eternity, and of the gentlest charities of life for her
brief residue of time." There was something highly
winning in her manner, and Sir Walter Scott, on
taking leave of her one day, remarked, " There are
some whom we meet, and should like ever after to
claim as kith and kin, and you are one of those."
And Wordsworth devoted to her memory the follow
ing lines a few years afterwards —
" Mourn rather for that holy spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep ;
For her who, her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep."
But her husband, who of all others should have
been proud of the high mental qualities and natural
charms of this gifted woman, voluntarily parted him
self from her, and made a foreign capital his home.
The married life of the Hon. Mrs. Hervey was
as unhappy as it was eccentric, for her husband,
who eloped with Lady Hanmer, was second son of
the first Earl of Bristol, and was a strange compound
"of wit, talent, and reckless profligacy, to which may
be added a perversion of intellect bordering closely
on insanity." One of his peculiarities was that of
making frequent appeals to the public in matters
relating to his domestic differences and private
concerns. His printed attacks on his wife were

118 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
characterized by a bitterness of a most cruel nature,
and were distinguished, says Mr. Jesse,1 " by an
indecency of language and an indelicacy of detail,
as well as by the basest assertions of private char
acter, only to be accounted for on the supposition
that their miserable author laboured under partial
insanity." It is to one of these extraordinary attacks
that Mrs. Hervey alludes in the subjoined letter to
George Selwyn —
"Mrs. Hervey presents her compliments to Mr.
Selwyn, and shall be infinitely beholden to him if
he will take the trouble to get for her something
Mr. Hervey has got printed in relation to her, the
particulars of which she cannot learn, but is informed,
at large, contains most scandalous abuse of her. She
is sensible no delicate or prudent person would
choose to draw this extraordinary gentleman's re
sentments and scurrility on himself; therefore she
pledges her veracity to Mr. Selwyn, that she will
never confess that she had the least assistance from
him, if he will be so compassionate as to get this
shameful pamphlet for her; for without seeing it
she must remain in the utmost dilemma as to her
proceedings. "Mrs. Hervey 's relations have kept her in ignor
ance of this matter, from their reluctance to give
1 George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, i. 219-221.

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 119
her new affliction ; but in an affair where character
is in question, she can accept no guide but lawyers ;
and till she sees the horrid libel, cannot know
whether she is injured enough to be redressed, but
believes the law can defend her from no slander
from Mr. Hervey but a denial of her marriage. She
is incapable of wishing to retaliate any wrongs on
him, or inflicting any punishment that might come
within her power. All she wishes is a release from
a house he has made dangerous to stay in, and should
this pamphlet help her to the means, she will pardon
every other consequence of it, and be for ever
grateful to Mr. Selwyn if he will procure it for her.
She is told there are letters Mr. Hervey says he
wrote to her. She has every one she ever did receive
now in her possession, and thinks it so improbable
he should have preserved copies, that she fears they
may be disgraceful fictions she ought not to let
pass for letters accepted by her."
One of the advertisements alluded to was as
follows — "Bond Street, May 4th, 1763.
" Whereas Mrs. Hervey has been three times from
home the last year, and at least as often the year
before, without my leave or privity ; and likewise
encouraged her son to persist in the same rebellious
practices ; I hereby declare, that I neither am nor

120 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
will be accountable for any future debts of hers
whatever. She is now keeping forcible possession of
my house, to which I never did invite, or ever
thought of inviting, her in all my life.
" Thomas Hervey."
When only a child, Elizabeth Simpson — afterwards
Mrs. Inchbald, the accomplished actress and popular
authoress — conceived a great fondness for the stage ;
and finding it hard to be a dairymaid when she was
longing to take the part of a fairy, she resolved to
make her own way in the world. So one day she ran
away from home in Suffolk, and went to London,
where three of her married sisters resided. Surprised
at her unexpected arrival, they treated her with
every kindness ; and after showing her the principal
sights of London, they sent her back to her mother.
But this visit proved an eventful one in her life,
for she was introduced to a young actor of the
name of Inchbald, whom she afterwards married.
On her return home she was no happier — especially
as she was disappointed in not getting an engagement
on the stage — and again ran away, this time taking
every precaution not to let her sisters know of her
whereabouts. Ignorant of the world, the foolish girl
hoped to get employment at one of the theatres, little
knowing the many dangers to which she was exposed.

UNHAPPILY married. 121
But, luckily, one of her brothers-in-law accidentally
met her in the street ; and, on her protesting against
returning home, it was arranged that she should
remain with her sisters for a time. Ere long, how
ever, her lover gained tidings of her movements, and,
after much difficulty, succeeded in marrying her on
June 9th, 1772 — she being nineteen, and he thirty-
seven. The union was an unsatisfactory one, for, whilst he
had led a far from steady life, she was flighty and
vain — always on the look-out for a flirtation. But her
married life was of short duration, for on June 6th,
1779, Mr. Inchbald died suddenly at Leeds, where he
and his wife were acting.
Left a widow in the very prime of her beauty, Mrs.
Inchbald continued her engagements in the theatrical
world ; and, as a dramatic writer, acquired consider
able reputation. Fortunately, worldly success did not
spoil her, and she remained the same unpretending
woman that she had been in her days of struggling
poverty. Although men of rank and wealth paid assiduous
court to her " in the hope of making her beauty
minister to their pleasures, she preserved her womanly
honour, though her vanity was by such attentions
raised to a pitch of madness. When she was quite
in her latter days she was earnestly sought in

122 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
marriage by a young, a brilliant, and well-endowed
man, of whom she was passionately fond ; but it
would seem that she was too generous to avail herself
of his rash entreaty." x Even to the end she retained
some of her good looks, and was ever popular in
the best and most fashionable society — the inde
fatigable industry by which she had made her high
position having gained her universal esteem and
respect. From her earliest years, the life of Letitia Elizabeth
Landon — who was born at Hans Place, Chelsea, on
August 14th, 1802 — was one of trouble. Thrown an
orphan upon the Mrorld, deprived of the patrimony
that should have been hers, and neglected by the
family that should have educated and provided for
her, she pushed bravely on, resolved to rely on her
own energies. But her high intellectual qualities —
indications of which she had shown even in childhood
— could not fail to attract attention. Introduced to
William Jerdan, this successful journalist at once
discovered her great poetical gift ; and by his in
fluence she quickly became a copious contributor for
years to the Literary Gazette.
Having successfully made a start in literature, she
poured forth with amazing rapidity her contributions,
which created delight into whatever hands they
1 Jeaffreson's Novels and Novelists, i. 346.

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 123
came. Some lines which she wrote as a tribute
to her father's memory are " one gush of exquisite
and inextinguishable affection," and full of sad pathos
and sweet tenderness —
" My heart said no name but thine
Should be on this last page of mine.
My father ! though no more thine ear
Censure or praise of mine can hear,
It soothes me to embalm thy name,
With all my hope, my pride, my fame !
******Alas ! the tears that still will fall
Are selfish in their fond recall.
If ever tears could win from heaven
A loved one, and yet be forgiven,
Mine surely might ! . . .
My own dead father, time may bring
Chance, change, upon his rainbow-wing ;
But never will thy name depart
The household god of thy child's heart,
Until thy orphan girl may share
The grave where her best feelings are.
Never, dear father, love can be
Like the dear love I had for thee."
A brilliant future seemed opening before her ; and
already the tide of fortune began to flow in with that
of fame. The public was her patron, and had empha
tically approved of her effusions. Truly she could
say— " .... If ever happiness
In its most passionate excess,

124 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Offered its wine to human lip,
It has been mine that cup to sip.
I may not say with what deep dread
The words of my first song were said ;
I may not say what deep delight
Has been upon my minstrel flight.
Thanks to the gentleness that lent
My young lute such encouragement."
And yet, in the freshness of her womanhood, when
her success allowed her to encourage still brighter
hopes, rumour was busy with her name, and slander
whispered dark suspicion as to her maiden purity.
Whatever the truth of the charge made against the
moral integrity of her character, there can be no doubt
that it was her fate to suffer deeply during many
after years from this evil report. Writing to Mr.
Thomson, she thus alludes to the scandal circulated
about her —
" As to the report you named, I know not M'hich
is greatest — the absurdity or the malice. Circum
stances have made me very much indebted to the
gentleman for much kindness. I have not had a
friend in the world but himself to manage anything
of business, whether literary or pecuniary. Your
own literary pursuits might have taught you how
little, in them, a young woman can do without assist
ance. Place yourself in my situation. Could you
have hunted London for a publisher, endured all

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 125
the alternate hot and cold water thrown on your
exertions, bargained for what sum they might be
pleased to give, and, after all, canvassed, examined,
nay, quarrelled over accounts the most intricate in
the world ? And again, after success had procured
money, what was I to do with it % Though ignorant
of business, I must know I could not lock it up in a
box ! Then, for literary assistance, my proof-sheets
could not go through the press without revision.
Who was to undertake this — I can only call it
drudgery — but some one to whom my literary
exertions could in return be as valuable as theirs
to me !
" But it is not on this ground that I express my
surprise at so cruel a calumny, but actually on that
of our slight intercourse. He is in the habit of
frequently calling on his way into town ; and unless
it is a Sunday afternoon, which is almost his only
leisure time for looking over letters, manuscripts,
etc., five or ten minutes is the usual time of his visit.
We visit in such different circles, that if I except the
evening he took Agnes and myself to Miss B  's,
I cannot recall our ever meeting in any one of the
round of M'inter parties.
" The more I think of my past life and of my
future prospects, the more dreary do they seem. I
have known little else than privation, unkindness,

126 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
and harassment. From the time I was fifteen, my
life has been one continual struggle, in some shape
or another, against actual poverty ; and I must say,
not a tithe of my profits have I ever expended on
myself." How deep was the shock her feelings sustained, her
own words show, yet the world saw no change in
her ; for in lio respect could she be persuaded to put
a curb upon her high spirit. Lord Lytton, in a noble
vindicatory letter to Laman Blanchard, refused to
listen to the calumny, adding —
"Even if partially true — what excuses! Friend
less, alone, with that lively fancy — no mother, no
guide, no protector, who could be more exposed %
Who should be more pitied ? "
With her growing fame and popularity, it was only
to be expected that all sorts of exaggerated stories
should be told concerning her ; and a letter from
Lady Blessington (January 29th, 1839) speaks of
two editors, both married men, as by public report
Miss Landon's lovers. According to Grantley Berke
ley, the poetess appealed to him for protection from
the persecution of Dr. Maginn ; x while Mrs. S. C.
Hall, although defending her purity in a someMThat
contradictory manner, acknowledges that her conduct
with Maginn was " extremely imprudent," and admits
1 My Life and Recollections.

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 127
that she engaged in a correspondence Math him that
excited the jealousy of his wife.
Then again, Mrs. Thomson, in her Recollections of
Literary Characters, speaks of one " false step " ;
Laman Blanchard hints at a mystery ; and Dr.
Madden, in his Life and Correspondence of the Countess
of Blessington, is characteristically diffuse on " the
designs of malevolent people." But, without alluding
further to this miserable tale, it would seem to have
embittered her whole life, and doubtless led to the
fatal marriage that resulted in her mournful and
mysterious death.
At the time these malicious reports were spread
affecting her fair fame, it had been stated she was
engaged to John Forster — the biographer of Dickens
— and who, notwithstanding what had been said
against her, was perfectly willing to carry out the
engagement.1 But she broke it off, and, to the
astonishment of all her friends, eventually allowed
herself to be sought in marriage by a person of
whom she knew very little — George Maclean, Gov
ernor of Cape Coast Settlement, in West Africa.
But, writes Grantley Berkeley,2 " she soon had
reason to repent her decision to accept him ; Mr.
Maclean, by his conduct, made it clearly apparent
1 W. Bates. The Maclise Portrait Gallery, p. 203.
2 My Life and Recollections, iii. 189.

128 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
that the accusations against her fair fame had reached
him. He absented himself, became sullen and
callous ; in short, strove to induce his affianced to
terminate their engagement. Miss Landon, how
ever, had made up her mind not to throw away
another chance, enticed him back, and he, finding
no honourable way of evading his obligations, most
reluctantly gave directions for the wedding."
Accordingly, she was married on June 7th, 1838,
by her brother, the Rev. Whittington Landon, and
given away by her staunch friend and admirer, Sir
Edward Lytton Bulwer. Sailing from Portsmouth,
July 5th, she landed in the middle of August at
the Cape, where she was at once installed as the
responsible mistress of Cape Coast Castle. Soon
after her arrival she sent home several letters,
stating, in the strongest terms, her favourable im
pressions of the country, her satisfaction with her
new abode, her enjoyment of health, and her cheerful
hopes and prospects. And yet after two months
of apparent peace and happiness in her new home,
the startling news announced that on Oct. 15th
she was found dead on the floor of her bedroom,
with an empty bottle in her hand, labelled "Acid
Hydrocyanicum Dilutum, Pharm. Lond. ]836." An
inquest M'as held, at which the following verdict was
returned — "That the death of the said Letitia was

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 129
caused by her having incautiously taken an over
dose of prussic-acid, which, from evidence, it appeared
she had been in the habit of using as a remedy
for spasmodic affections, to which she was subject."
But unpleasant rumours were circulated about her
death, and dark hints of treachery were thrown out,
in consequence of which Dr. Madden visited Cape
Coast a few months after this terrible event ; his
inquiries resulting in the conviction that the un
fortunate woman had died by an overdose of prussic-
acid administered by herself; but whether accidentally
or designedly there was no positive evidence to show.
Her husband testified to their happy married life,
and produced a letter written on the very morning
of her death, in her usual cheerful tone, addressed
to her friend, Mrs. S. C. Hall. Whatever the cause
of her death may have been, Dr. Anthony Todd
Thomson thus writes — " I knew her well, and
attended her from her infancy ; she was the last
woman whom I should have supposed likely to
destroy herself. She was said to have died from
prussic-acid. Now I fitted out the medicine-chest
she took with her to Cape Coast Castle, and know
that there was no prussic-acid in her possession. I
am convinced that she did not die from its effects,
and we must seek for her death from some other
cause." VOL. II. K

130 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Her death must ever remain amongst the unsolved
mysteries of human life ; the same uncertainty attach
ing to it as hung over the purity of her early woman
hood. With the following extract from a letter of
her brother — W. H. Landon to Mr. Blanchard, Oct.
27th, 1840, in which he gives an account of her
departure, and concludes with a summary of her
character — we leave the history of the highly-gifted
but sad and unfortunate woman —
"This was the last I saw of a sister endeared to
me by every tie of grateful affection ; of affection
never, that I know of, broken for an hour. Many
will be ready to give assurance of the private worth,
the frank and confiding generosity of her disposition,
but to this no one can be a truer witness, or with
deeper reason, than myself. In the purposes to
which she devoted the fruits of her laborious life,
self M^as ever forgotten, and her industry I believe
to have been unparalleled. In childhood, and in
after years, in every vicissitude of fortune, both when
under severe family trials she was regaining the
rewards of literature, or when amid her success she
had to pay the penalties Mrhich a woman hazards
when she passes beyond the pale of private life,
she was still the same — unselfish, high-minded,
affectionate." Dr. Parr was one of those misguided men who

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 131
seem to have made marriage a matter of convenience
rather than of love. When Stanmore School was
opened on Oct. 14th, 1771, and it was found desir
able that a female superintendent should be placed
at the head, it is certain that in the ensuing
November he was united in marriage to Jane, only
child of Zachariah Marsingale, of Carleton, in York
shire. Whether this circumstance prompted the
resolution of marrying, or merely hastened it, is
open to doubt ; although marriage was virtually
a necessity in his new position. It is true there
was mutual esteem, which may occasionally supply
the place of mutual affection ; yet, in this case, the
union never brought much real happiness.1 Indeed,
so violent was his wife's temper that he is said to
have risen one day from the table, and drawing
his penknife from his pocket, to have opened it,
and drawn it across the throat of her portrait. She
died in 1810, and in 1816 he married Mary Eyre,
of Coventry, this second union, fortunately for him,
being far happier than the former.
Between Samuel Richardson and his second wife —
a sister of Mr. Leake, bookseller, of Bath — there does
not seem to have existed a very good understanding.
One reason, perhaps, was that he was very fond of
ladies ; who, admiring his works, showered compliments
1 See Field's Memoirs of Dr. Parr, 1828, i. 66. K 2

132 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
upon him. Indeed, two or more ladies generally
stayed in his house, and, according to Mrs. Barbauld,
" the author of Clarissa M^as always fond of female
society. He lived in a kind of flower-garden of
ladies ; they were his inspirers, his critics, his ap-
plauders ; connections of business apart, they were his
chief correspondents. He had usually a number of
young ladies visiting him, whom he used to engage
in conversation on some subject of sentiment, and
provoke, by awful opposition, to display the treasures
of intellect they possessed." These favoured and
selected women were honoured by the name of " his
daughters," and many a flattering letter they were in
the habit of sending him. But it was an unfortunate
day for him when his correspondence MTas published
to the world, for this exposed his vanities, and showed
how easily impressed he was by a little flattery.
Poor Letitia Pilkington was one of those who could
scarcely find words to express her admiration of his
goodness — "What can I pay thee for this noble
usage but grateful praise % So Heaven itself is paid ;
and you, truly made in the image of God, will, I hope,
accept of the low but sincere oblation of a thankful
spirit." With such flimsy adulation his lady friends
pampered his vanity; and who can wonder that his
wife felt a chronic chagrin when correspondence of
this fulsome kind was continually going on. It is

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 133
true that these ladies Mrere the superior women of
their generation, but this did not alter the propriety
of their conduct. Some kept their own counsel, and
acted like Lady Bradshaigh, who for a long time
had not courage to confess to her friends that she
was corresponding with the celebrated novelist, and
who, when he had sent her his portrait, said it was
the likeness of her valued friend, Mr. Dickenson.
But even as a child, Richardson seems to have been
eminently popular with the fair sex ; many of his girl
friends having oftentimes consulted their little Sammy
in their early love affairs, who indited amatory epistles
for them. Thus, one clay a bright, happy girl, joyous
in her first love, begged him to compose for her a
love-letter. " What shall I write for you 1 " he asked.
" Oh," said she, blushing, " how can I tell you %
But you can't be too kind in M'hat you say to him."
And yet the foolish girl did not want the letter
to be over loving, fearing if he detected how much
she liked him he might not think so much of her.
This was a curious position for young Richardson to
occupy ; but, as years rolled by and he left his boy
hood behind, the young ladies still regarded him with
similar confidence.
What was their excitement, however, when his
famous novel appeared, entitled Pamela; or, Virtue

134 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Rewarded — a series of letters from a beautiful young
damsel to her parents, who withstood the attempts of
her master, who wished to ruin her, but married him
directly he offered to be her husband. The sensation
produced by this book was immense, and in public
places of resort, such as the Mall or the Park, ladies
held up the volumes to one another, to show that they
were not behind in the fashion. Indeed, Mrs. Bar-
bauld further tells us, how " the author received
anonymous letters from six ladies, who pressed him
to declare upon his honour — which, they were sure, he
was too much of a gentleman to violate — whether the
story was true or false ; and they hoped Mrs. B.  , if
there was such a lady, Mrould not be against satisfying
a request which redounded so much to her honour.
They tell him also they have taken an oath to keep
the secret if he will intrust them with it, and that
they will never cease writing till he has obliged them.
He tells them, in his answer, that it was never known,
since the world began, that a secret was kept which
was intrusted to six — ladies."
Any coolness between himself and his wife can be
easily explained when it is remembered what a
favourite Richardson was with the ladies. Surely his
conduct was enough to make any wife jealous and
dissatisfied ! On the other hand, his domestic arrange
ments were a model of what an establishment should

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 135
be. But his children stood in awe of his presence,
for they were brought up to honour and obey rather
than love him. Thus, when Lady Bradshaigh told
him that his daughters' letters, with the "honoured
sir " and " ever dutiful," were cold and formal, he
replied, " I had rather (as too much reverence is not
the vice of the age) lay down rules that should stiffen
into apparent duty, than make the pert rogues too
familiar with characters so reverend." If there had
been less of this cold formality in his home, and more
of the unreserved conduct which had existed between
him and his lady friends, his domestic life would have
been far happier. His children's society, too, would
have materially brightened his home ; but they lost
their tongues when he was present, and trembled
when they heard his footsteps. And yet all children
except his own were fond of him. " My first recollec
tion of him," writes a lady to Mrs. Barbauld, " is in
the centre of Salisbury Square, or Salisbury Court, as
it was then called ; and of being admitted as a playful
child into his study, where I was generally caressed and
rewarded with biscuits and bonbons of some kind or
other, and sometimes with books, for which he kindly
encouraged a taste, even at that early age, which has
adhered to me all mv life long, and continues to be
the solace of many a painful hour."
Another unhappy life was that of Charlotte Smith,

136 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
a woman alike remarkable for her beauty and extra
ordinary talent. Born in King Street, St. James's
Square, on 4th May, 1749, she was still a child when
misfortune approached her. Left, on her father's
second marriage, to the care of a scheming aunt, this
sagacious lady found her a husband, and when only
fourteen years of age she was forced into an engage
ment with a young man twenty-one years of age,
the second son of Richard Smith, director of the East
India Company, and was married to him on the 23rd
Feb., 1765. Her married life could not be otherwise
than sad. The child-wife, writes Mr. Jeaffreson,
" M-as taken from the fresh and lively quarter of St.
James's, to a dark and dirty lane in the city, Mr.
Smith's place of business. The old man — never think
ing that the apartments over his warehouse did not
constitute a fit residence for a young bride of aristo
cratic education and pretensions — felt it his duty to
keep his son's ' proud little lady ' in order, and teach
her that she was not to give herself any airs. He was
very rude to her West End friends, who, resenting
his conduct, did not repeat their calls east of Temple
Bar. So situated — immured in a gloomy house, cut
off from old associates, and cowed by the sternness
of her newly-acquired parent — the poor child had
ample reasons for shedding tears." Her husband
did little to comfort her, possessing no refinement

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 137
of mind, and only fitted for his position as a
tradesman. On the death of his father he led a life of extra
vagance, and vras eventually arrested for debt, and
conveyed to the King's Bench Prison. His wife,
in spite of his past callous and mean conduct, accom
panied him thither, and did her best to cheer him
during his six months' imprisonment. It was when
reduced to poverty, and after she had tasted some
of the bitterest sorrows the world can bestow, that
she took to literature, and became an industrious
authoress. For the last twenty years of her life she
lived apart from her husband, toiling hard for her
children, and struggling patiently and bravely against
those sufferings and hardships which an ill-assorted
and too early marriage had brought upon her.
When Sterne was ready to make love to a dozen
ladies at the same time, it was not possible for his
home life to be very happy. And yet he had married
a woman — -Elizabeth Lumley — of unusual accomplish
ments, and who, in spite of his neglect, was foolishly
fond of him. But Sterne was inconstant, and, like
many other men, was spoilt by flattery ; for, as David
Garrick said, "the incense of the great spoiled his
head, and their ragouts his stomach." At one time
his marriage with Miss Lumley seemed a remote
contingency, as she was in ill-health, which her

138 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
relatives feared might end in consumption. Accord
ingly, one evening when Sterne was sitting with her,
she said, "My dear Laurey, I can never be yours,
for I verily believe I have not long to live ; but I
have left you every shilling of my fortune." Much
as he appeared to love her at this time, she did not
retain the heart she so much valued, and succeeding
years brought her bitter experience when she found
how fickle a heart he possessed.
But after such a letter as the following, which was
written previous to their marriage, what woman
would have anticipated so complete a change in his
love for her ? —
" Yes ! I will steal from the world, and not a
babbling tongue will tell where I am — echo shall
not so much as whisper my hiding-place. Suffer thy
imagination to paint it as a little sun-gilt cottage,
on the side of a romantic hill. Dost thou think I
will leave love and friendship behind me 1 No ! they
shall be the companions of my solitude, for they
will sit down and rise up with me in the amiable
form of my L  . We will be as merry and
innocent as our first parents in Paradise, before the
arch-fiend entered that indescribable scene.
" The kindest affections will have room to shoot and
expand in our retirement, and produce such fruit as
madness, and envy, and ambition have always killed

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 139
in the bud. Let the human tempest and hurricane
rage at a distance ; the desolation is beyond the
horizon of peace. My L  has seen the polyanthus
blow in December — some friendly wall has sheltered
it from the biting wind ; — no planetary influence shall
reach us but that which presides over and cherishes
the sweetest floM^ers. God preserve us ! how delight
ful this prospect is in idea ! We will plant and we
will build in our own way — simplicity shall not be
tortured by art. We will learn of nature how to live ;
she shall be our alchymist, to mingle all the good
of life into one salubrious draught. The gloomy fear
of Care and Distrust shall be banished from our
dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar deity ;
we will sing our choral songs of gratitude, and rejoice
to the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L  .
Return to one who languishes for thy society.
"L. Sterne."
But in the years that passed after their marriage,
what a sad and marked change came over him, for
the woman to whom he made all this profession of
love no longer possessed his heart ! Thus, we find
him speaking all kinds of soft words to Catherine
Formantel, or De Fourmantel, and writing to her
in the most attentive manner. In one letter he
tells her that she " is sweeter than honey," and sends

140 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
her sweetmeats and honey, with the message that
"neither of theni are half so sweet as herself."
On another occasion he writes —
" I have scarce time to tell you how much I love
you, my clear Kitty, and how much I pray to God
you may so live and love me, as one day to share
in my great good fortune."
According to one account, this lady became insane,
and died in Paris in a lunatic asylum, being visited
by Sterne before her decease, whose memory he
partly perpetuated in the Maria of the Sentimental
Journey. But Sterne's inconstancy to his poor wife did not
end here, for he next falls violently in love with Eliza
Draper, the wife of a Bombay lawyer, who was sent
over to this country for her health. On becoming
acquainted with this lady, " he immediately dis
covered in her a mind so congenial with his 0M7n,
so enlightened, so refined, and so tender, that their
mutual attraction presently joined them in the closest
union that purity would possibly admit of. He loved
her as his friend, and prided in her as his pupil ; all
her concerns became presently his; her health, her
circumstances, her reputation, her children, M'ere his ;
his fortune, his time, his country, were at her dis
posal, so far as the sacrifice of all or any of these
might contribute to her real happiness."

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 141
She does not appear to have been possessed of good
looks, a fact which he did not hesitate to tell her,
although he reminded her that she had qualities
which far more than compensated for the absence
of beauty. He writes —
" You are not handsome, Eliza, nor is yours a face
that will please one-tenth of your beholders, but you
are something more ; for I scruple not to tell you,
I never saw so intelligent, so animated, so good a
countenance ; nor was there, nor ever will be, that
man of sense, tenderness, and feeling in your
company three hours, that was not, or Mall not be,
your admirer or friend, in consequence of it. A
something in your eyes and voice you possess in a
degree more persuasive than any woman I ever saw,
read, or heard of. But it is that bewitching sort of
nameless excellence, that men of nice sensibility alone
can be touched with."
His letters to her, which were numerous, were
generally couched in the same extravagant style, of
which the following is a specimen —
"Talking of widows, pray, Eliza, if ever you are
such, do not think of giving yourself to some wealthy
Nabob, because I design to marry you myself. My
wife cannot live long, and I know not the M^oman I
should like so well for her substitute as yourself.
'Tis true I am ninety-five in constitution, and you

142 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
but twenty-five ; rather too great a disparity, this ! —
but what I want in youth I will make up in wit
and good-humour. No Swift so loved his Stella,
Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Sacharissa,
as I will love and sing thee, my bride elect."
It is difficult to imagine how Sterne could have
reconciled his conduct with what he knew to be his
duty to his wife and home. His married life was a
terrible inconsistency, and was rendered all the more
painful from the fact that his wife, who would persist
in loving him, was from time to time heart-broken by
the scandal and gossip she heard about him. In a
letter dated Feb. 23rd, 1767, he thus writes to his
daughter —
"... I do not wish to know who was the busy
fool who made your mother uneasy about Mrs.  ;
'tis true I have a friendship for her, but not to
infatuation. I believe I have judgment enough to
discern hers and every woman's faults. I honour thy
mother for her answer — that she wished not to be
informed, and begged him to drop the subject."
But within a year after this letter was written he
died — March 18th, 1768— and a miserable death it
was ; for we are told that the vital M^armth had not
left his body when his attendants rifled his dressing-
case, and stripped him of his gold sleeve-buttons.
Thackeray's life was grievously unhappy; for his

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 143
wife became ill, and her mind failed her. For a time
he regarded the malady — which threw a permanent
cloud over the best affections of his heart — as an
illness ; and then " he clung to her, and waited on
her with an assiduity of affection which only made
his task the more painful to him." But it soon
became evident that any chance of her recovering
her old health and spirits was hopeless ; and it was
arranged that she should live " in the companionship
of some one with whom her life might be altogether
quiet, and she was accordingly domiciled with a lady
with whom she became happy." So poor Thackeray's
life was henceforward devoted to her children alone ;
and after but a few years of married life he became,
as it were, a widower till the end of his days.1
However successful the Duke of Wellington might
be in great affairs, it must not be supposed that he
passed through life without his share of domestic
trials. Perhaps, as it has been remarked,2 " the very
turn of bis mind, and the constant dedication of his
energies to the public service, in some degree unfitted
him for the quiet enjoyment of home life. Perhaps,
as often happens where blame is scarcely attributable
i See Thackeray, by Anthony Trollope, 1837, pp. 21, 22.
Thackeray married, in 1837, Isabella, daughter of Colonel Matthew
Shawe, by whom he had three daughters, Anne, Jane, and Harriet.
2 Memoir of the Duke of Wellington, 1858; iv. 85.

144 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
to either party, he was ill matched in his domestic
arrangements." But his home, properly so called,
was never a sunny one ; and in moments of despond
ency, of which the Mrorld knew little or nothing, he
was heard to say, " There is nothing in this world
worth living for." Hence, his confidence was much
more eagerly given out of his domestic circle than
within it ; although it should be added no man felt
more acutely the pang of severance from those to
whom any share of his affections was given.
According to Southey, Whitefield's " marriage M^as
not a happy one " ; but he adduces no evidence in
support of this statement. Cornelius Winter, who
was an inmate of Whitefield's house, tells us that the
preacher " was not happy in his wife ; but I fear
some, who had not all the religion they professed,
contributed to his infelicity. He did not intention
ally make his wife unhappy ; he always preserved
great decency and decorum towards her. Her death
set his mind much at liberty. She certainly did not
behave in all respects as she ought. She could be
under no temptation from his conduct towards the
sex, for he was a very pure man, a strict example of
the chastity he inculcated upon others."
On the other hand, Whitefield frequently speaks of
his wife in endearing terms ; and although there may
have been a want of sympathy between them in their

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 145
married life, it has been maintained that they lived
happily together, " his letters to others showing him
ever thoughtful of her comfort and happiness."
At any rate, at the time of his marriage he ex
pressed a confident hope of this step bringing him
peace and joy ; and writing to a friend after his
wedding, he says —
" On Saturday I was married in the fear of God
to one who, I hope, will be a helpmeet to me."
To another he writes — •
" I am lately entered into the marriage relation.
Jesus was called to, Jesus was present at, the marriage.
We have lately enjoyed much of the Divine presence.
Many precious promises have been pressed upon my
soul ; I believe I shall see greater things than
>> 1
ever. The Gentleman's Magazine, in announcing White-
field's marriage, referred its readers to a prayer in his
last Journal, the entry being as follows —
"Northampton, October \§th, 1740.
" Mrs. Edwards " (wife of the celebrated Jonathan
Edwards) "is a woman adorned with a meek and
quiet spirit. She talked feelingly and solidly of the
things of God, and seemed to be such a helpmeet for
her husband, that she caused me to renew those
1 George Whitefield, p. 140. J. R. Andrews.
VOL. II. L

146 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
prayers which, for some months, I have put to God
that he would send me a daughter of Abraham to be
my wife. I find, upon many accounts, it is my duty
to marry. Lord, I desire to have no choice of my
own. Thou knowest my circumstances ; thou knowest
I only desire to marry in and for Thee. Thou didst
choose a Rebekah for Isaac ; choose one for me, to be
a helpmeet for me, in carrying on that great work
committed to my charge ! Lord, hear me ! Let my
cry come unto Thee ! "
That Whitefield's wife possessed certain qualities
of mind of no ordinary kind may be gathered from
several incidents recorded. Thus, three years after
her marriage, whilst she and Whitefield were on their
way to Georgia, the ship in which they sailed was
threatened by an enemy. Guns were mounted and
chains put about the masts. The wildest confusion
prevailed, and Whitefield was forced to acknowledge
that he was "naturally a coward " ; but his wife " set
about making cartridges," and did her utmost in
having all things ready for the " fire and smoke." 1
On another occasion, when her husband was sur
rounded by a mob, and began to show symptoms of
alarm as the stones flew in all directions, she, stand
ing by his side, cried with true heroism, "Now,
1 Tyerman's Life of George Whitefield, i. 533. 1876. See
Southey's Life of Whitefield.

UNHAPPILY MARRIED. 147
George, play the man for God." She was evidently
a woman of nerve and high principle, and doubtless
had impressed Whitefield with her superior qualities ;
for writing to his friend Gilbert Tennent, he says —
" About eleven weeks ago I married, in the fear of
God, one who was a widow, of about thirty-six years
of age, and who has been a housekeeper for many
years. Neither rich in fortune,1 nor beautiful as to
her person, but, I believe, a true child of God ; and
one who would not, I think, attempt to hinder me
in His M^ork for the world. In that respect I am just
the same as before marriage. I hope God Mall never
suffer me to say, ' I have married a wife, and therefore
I cannot come.' "
In another letter to a friend, he speaks of her as,
at one time, fond of the world and its pleasures, but
" for upwards of three years past a despised follower
of the Lamb of God."
But whatever fault there was would seem to have
been on Whitefield's side ; for, as it has been often
remarked, men almost always from home ought to
remain unmarried. What wife would not resent
being left by herself almost before her honeymoon
was over. And yet we find Whitefield writing to
a friend —
1 The Gentleman's Magazine (1741, p. 608), in announcing White-
field's marriage, stated that his wife had a fortune of £10,000.
L 2

148 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
" I expect to be in London about three weeks.
My wife I shall leave in the country for some time."
If she therefore counted on making him a domestic
husband, she must have soon been undeceived ; for
she speedily found that neither matrimony nor any
other " impediment " would be allowed to interfere
with the "great business of his life." And although
in their early married life she often accompanied him
in his travels, his journeys and voyages were soon
too fatiguing for her ; and she ceased after a few
years to be his travelling companion. Hence, always
apart, they naturally became indifferent to one
another, although Whitefield invariably alluded to
his wife with kindness and affection wherever her
name was mentioned.
Some have blamed him for preaching her funeral
sermon — taking for his text Rom. viii. 20 — five days
after her death ; but, as one of his biographers has
remarked — " Those who read Whitefield's life must
have observed how completely every worldly con
sideration was set aside for the preaching of the
gospel ; and if social events became in his hands a
fruitful source of illustration, the tenderest ties could
also be made by him subservient to his Master's
interest." Such was the man, and nothing could alter
him.

CHAPTER IV.
SEPARATION.
Lord Bolingbroke — Lord Byron — Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton
— Coleridge — Charles Dickens — Edmund Kean — Duke of
Grafton — Wm. Hazlitt — Walter Savage Landor — Dr.
Lardner — Lord Lyttelton — Lord Melbourne — Mulready —
Hon. Mrs. Norton — Shelley — John Wilkes.
Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of the second
Duke of Marlborough, was married to Frederick,
second Viscount Bolingbroke, on Sept. 9th, 1757.
But when married over eleven years she was divorced
from Lord Bolingbroke on March 10th, 1768, and
two days afterwards became the wife of Topham
Beauclerk. AVriting in 1766 to his friend George
Selwyn about the wretched estrangement between
his wife and himself, Viscount Bolingbroke says — ¦
" If ever you happen to talk of me to Lady Diana,
represent me as appearing to you altered and un
happy. Excuse my plaguing you with my nonsense.
You know too well the comfort it affords an afflicted
man to talk to his friend of his affliction, not to
forgive me."

150 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
On the other hand, his brother, the Hon. Henry
St. John, writing later on in the same year, takes
a more cheerful view of his brother's feelings re
specting his matrimonial difficulties ; the following
being interesting from its allusion to the unhappy
estrangement —
" My brother, whom you inquire so kindly after,
is not sunk into such low spirits as you seem to
have heard. I think, on the contrary, though he
laments the loss of a home, he does not whimper
and whine after the object that has been these two
years past the cause of his melancholy, and I fancy
he at least sees that object in its true light. From
a desponding lover and husband he is determined
to become more of a man of the world, and not to
sacrifice his pleasure and interest in life to the
indulgence of a grief brought on by an accident
originally, and afterwards continued by the foolish
obstinacy of a woman, and promoted by -the un
feeling behaviour and indolence of her brother."
"The emotion of love which had been known
to Byron even as a child, was," as William M.
Rossetti1 remarks, "destined to dominate his whole
career." At Aberdeen he had loved a little girl
named Mary Duff; and about 1800 he was enthralled
by his lovely cousin, Margaret Parker, who died of
1 Lives of Famous Poets. 1878.

SEPARATION. 151
a decline within tMro or three years. When about
fifteen years old he fell desperately in love with
Mary Anne Chaworth, the heiress of Annesley, of
considerable personal attractions, who was already
engaged to a Mr. Musters, whom she married in
1805, but the match proved an unhappy one, and
she eventually lost her reason. In spite of his
age, and her treatment of him as a mere school-boy,
he was deeply attached to her, and his passion,
which was more than a transitory one, "darkened
many an after year with vain longing and yearning
protest." Unsettled in his mind, an eagerness for
travelling shortly seized him, and he went abroad.
With his susceptible nature and morbid disposition,
it was impossible for him to exist long without
feeling the emotion of love. On arriving at Malta
he was struck with the charms of a Mrs. Spencer
Smith, and on reaching Athens he stayed with
Theodora Macri, widow of the English Vice-Consul ;
the eldest (Theresa) of her three beautiful daughters
having been immortalized by him as the " Maid of
Athens." She became Mrs. Black, and falling into
poverty, an appeal for her support was made in
the Times on March 23rd, 1872, but she died in
October 1875.
In the autumn of the year 1813 Byron turned
his thoughts seriously to marriage, and proposed to

152 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Anna Isabella, only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke.
She declined his offer, but continued to correspond
with him on terms of friendship. After nearly a
year had elapsed, he proposed to another lady, who
likewise refused him, and on the next day (15th
Sept., 1814) he renewed his offer to Miss Milbanke,
and this time was accepted. The marriage took
place on the 2nd Jan., 1815, and at first was happy,
but soon differences arose between them, arising
from incompatibilities of character. In his first and
only year of married life his money embarrassments
naturally produced considerable discomfort, resulting
in as many as nine executions in his house. Early
in December his wife bore him a daughter, who
was christened Augusta Ada, and it must ever be
regretted that this new link in their married life
was not the means of cementing afresh their love
to one another. But this event did not improve
matters, and on the 15th of the following January,
Lady Byron went with her infant' on a visit to her
father in Leicestershire, and a fortnight afterwards
announced that she would never live with him again.
Her reasons for adopting this course were unknown
at the time ; but it may be remembered how, in the
year 1856, Lady Byron divulged to Mrs. Beecher
Stowe, the eminent American novelist, her reasons
for separating from her husband. According to her

SEPARATION. 153
story, Byron had before his marriage commenced an
incestuous intrigue with his half-sister, Mrs. Leigh,
which he not only continued after their marriage,
but made no secret of to his wife. The supposed
offspring of this connection was Elizabeth Medora,
born in the year 1815, and whose singular and
painful history and autobiography1 appeared in the
year 1869. It appears that (probably about 1831)
her eldest sister, Mrs. Trevanion, informed her that
Colonel Leigh was not her father; while in 1840
Lady Byron further revealed to her the startling
news that her real father had been Lord Byron.
As is well known, this part of Byron's sad life has
always been a disputed question, and while some
have credited Lady Byron's terrible story, others
have disbelieved it. As William Rossetti briefly sums
up, the grounds for rejecting it are chiefly these —
" That letters addressed at the time by Lady Byron
to Mrs. Leigh tell potently in the opposite direction,
and that considerable cause has been shown for
thinking that her ladyship may, in numerous in
stances, including this one, have been subject to
unfounded impressions, have brooded over supposi
titious conditions of things, and have arrived at
conclusions strangely irrelevant to their assumed
premises. The very high character always borne by
1 Edited by Charles Mackay.

154 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Mrs. Leigh counts also, and deservedly, for much."
As, too, Mr. Leslie Stephen writes 1 — " It can only
be surmised that Lady Byron had become jealous of
Byron's public and pointed expressions of love for
his sister, contrasted so forcibly with his utterances
about his wife, and in brooding over her wrongs had
developed the hateful suspicion communicated to
Mrs. Stowe."
Whatever Byron's faults may have been, most
impartial persons will hesitate before accepting the
story that Mrs. Stowe published to the world, rather
preferring to pass over a painful subject.
At the time of their separation it would appear
that Lady Byron suspected her husband was insane,
and set inquiries on foot ; but these proved the
reverse. Then, again, it was stated that while con
nected with the management of Drury Lane Theatre,
he had brought into his house as a mistress an
actress known as Mrs. Mardyn, another story which
Moore denies. It was only natural that tales of this
kind should be circulated, but it is said Byron
for about a year ostensibly contemplated reunion
as possible.
At last, abandoning all hope of reconciliation, he
went abroad for ever, and in April 1819, wTas
introduced to a young and beautiful married lady,
1 Diet, of Nat. Biography, viii. 143.

SEPARATION. 155
Teresa, daughter of Count Gamba of Ravenna, who
when only sixteen years of age had married Count
Guiccioli. This lovely blonde, with rich yellow hair,
fell passionately in love with Byron, and he with her ;
and in this love-affair he certainly displayed more
constancy than he had hitherto done on similar
occasions. But it would have been difficult for him
to become quickly indifferent to one who so truly
and warmly loved him ; and in truth she fully
merited all the devotion which the poet could bestow
upon her. It should be noted that her husband's
conduct during the earlier and less public stages of
the amour, " was such as to inspire no consideration
for him, and leave him no tribute of sympathy, even
from a severe moralist, Mdien the most trying crisis
for him arrived. Indeed, his behaviour seems to have
been so inexcusable, and so inconsistent with the
plainest rules of self-respect, that it was the Countess
who obtained from the Pope a judicial separation
from her husband, not he (as might have been
anticipated) from her. She forewent all the worldly
advantages of her wealthy marriage, and retained
henceforward an annual income of only about £200
per annum." J But without entering more fully into
this well-known episode in Byron's life, it would
appear that his interest in Greece, which was in a
1 Rossetti : Lives of Famous Poets, p. 302.

156 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
state of insurrection against the Turkish dominion, as
well as his waning ardour in his love-affair wath the
Countess Guiccioli, induced him in 1823 to sail from
Genoa, thinking his services in Greece might be of
value. But on the 19th of the following April, the
inroads made on his constitution by broken health
told their tale, and he succumbed to the effects of
cold and fever.
And so the great poet passed away, but not until
he had, in his half-lethargic state, made futile efforts
to convey some intelligible message for his wife,
child, and sister. Whatever the world's verdict may
be on the wretched history of his domestic life, it
must always be a matter of the deepest regret that
one so gifted should have died a lonely and an
untimely death. As William Rossetti truly remarks,
" The great thing in Byron is genius. If ever a man
breathed whom we recognize as emphatically the
genius, that man was Byron."
The unhappiness of Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton,
in his married life, was one of those sad and painful
exposures which must ever be deeply regretted. His
prominent position in literature must always make
his name famous, associated as it must ever be with
a miserably blighted home. It was by mere chance
he ever saw the young lady who was, to be the
heroine in such a painful romance of real life.

SEPARATION. 157
Accompanying his mother, by accident, to a literary
tea-party at Miss Berry's, they sat together in one
of the rooms not yet invaded by other guests, when
Mrs. Bulwer Lytton suddenly exclaimed —
" Oh, Edward, what a singularly beautiful face.
Do look! Who can she be?"
This young lady was no other than Rosina,
daughter of Francis Wheeler, M'hom Bulwer after
wards married in 1827. Fascinated by her attractive
appearance and witty intelligence, he turned a deaf
ear to the advice of his best friends — Disraeli
amongst the number — who did their best to convince
him how unfit the lady MTas to be " the wife of a
man of his exacting disposition and nervous sensitive
temperament." Before long the ill-assorted couple were separated,
and Paris was kept alive by the scandals which
ensued. One of the most concise accounts of this
wretched marriage is that given by Mr. Bates, in
his Maclise Portrait Gallery. " Bulwer's elder brother,
Henry, the late Lord Dalling, unwisely set on foot
a system of espionage, with the view of obtaining
grounds for an application for divorce ; but this
was unsuccessful, for though aided by his agents,
the English embassy and the French police, he
failed to discover the slightest circumstance affecting
the reputation of the object of their supervision.

158 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
She was one of the wittiest women of the day, and
possessed an unrivalled power of virulent and in
cisive satire. Such indeed was her reputation for
cleverness, that it was currently reported by the
rivals and detractors of Bulwer that he was in
debted to her for important aid in the composition
of some of his best works — the Pilgrims of the Rhine
being especially indicated. Thackeray styled her
'The Countess Guiscard,' and likened her to that
character mentioned by Addison, who appeared either
angel or devil, according as it happened to be either
light or shadow in which she met your view. In
1839 appeared Cheveley or the Man of Honour, of
which her husband is the hero ; and The Budget of the
Bubble Family — a three-volume novel — abounds with
a personality and vulgarity which alienated many
of the friends of the authoress, and did much to
avenge the husband for the bitterness of his wife's
attacks. Here her mother-in-law, whose efforts to
effect a reconciliation were known to all, was ex
hibited as a vulgar, illiterate woman ; Henry BulM^er
is the hateful scoundrel of the story, and the French
political barrister, and the ex-minister of State,
Odillon Barrot, who had acted against her interests
in the old Parisian mysteries, is depicted in the most
odious light that resentment could suggest." A
full account of the persecution to which she had

SEPARATION. 159
been subjected was given by her ladyship in a
volume entitled A Blighted Life, in which Bulwer
is depicted as one of the worst of men — "false,
cunning, cruel, and unscrupulous." Finally, on the
occasion of his presenting himself as a candidate
for Parliament, she made a sudden rush upon the
hustings, at the conclusion of his speech, harangued
the mob in a strain of coarse and impassioned in
vective, and revealed to the world the odious secrets
of the prison-house. After this sad affair she dis
appeared from the world, and remained in obscurity
till her death in March 1882.
Coleridge used to remark, " The most happy mar
riage I can imagine or picture to myself would be
the union of a deaf man to a blind woman." It
would, perhaps, have been well if his wife had been
blind, and had thereby had concealed from her gaze
his eccentric and wretched habits. Like most mar
riages, it was happy at the commencement, the
honeymoon being spent in a sequestered cottage,
amid beautiful scenery, and within sound of the sea.
It is not surprising that among such surroundings
Coleridge should have prolonged his honeymoon with
his youthful bride, Sarah — or, as he preferred to call
her, Sara — Fricker, from one month to three, " till his
youthful yearnings for a life of action, and perhaps
his increasing sense of the necessity of supplementing

160 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
the ambrosia of love with the bread and cruse of
mortals, compelled him to re-enter the world." 1
But in those sweet, tranquil months, when all the
world seemed full of poetry for her, little did the
young bride anticipate the cheerless days to come.
How could she dream of his love ever decaying, or
of his being estranged from her in whose affection he
was then reposing ? Such an idea would have been a
moral sacrilege in these sacred hours of early wedlock !
And how full also of pathos are those lines in the
jEolian Harp of 1795, descriptive of his then un
clouded happiness ! —
" Methinks it would have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled,
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is music slumbering on her instrument."
No one who knows the after history of Coleridge's
life can read this poem without emotion, so full is it
of hope, and expressive of inward satisfaction and joy.
But these bright visions — these " flitting fantasies " —
were to have but a butterfly ephemeral existence for
him, and soon by the cruel and bitter irony of fate
were to disappear for ever from the horizon of his
life. His wife was ere long to learn that she must
pay the penalty for marrying a genius — a type of
genius utterly unfit to work for and keep a M'ife.
1 Coleridge : H. D. Traill, 1884, pp. 20, 21.

SEPARATION. 161
It was a cheerless future for her. What woman
would not have been discouraged and disappointed
when she saw how her brother-in-law Southey, by his
orderly and conscientious work, earned the needful
daily bread, not only for his own family, but often
for that of his friend ; while her own husband
"spent his time in dreamy inactivity and far-reach
ing plans, or plunged into literary enterprises, so
injudiciously planned and so irregularly conducted,
as only to lose money and end in failure."1 Surely
her sister's bright and happy home was sufficient
to excite her jealousy, for was she not right in
arguing that if one poet could finish his poems and
pay his tradesmen's bills, so could another ? Thus,
as time went on, a gradual estrangement sprang
up between them, which ultimately ended in their
separation. And yet, be it said to his credit, he always had a
deep love for his children, and never ceased to speak
with respect and regard of his wife, although even
such influences were powerless to alter his mode of
life. Writing to Mr. Poole, in 1803, he tells him that
" Hartley is a strange, strange boy, exquisitely wild —
an utter visionary ; like the moon among the clouds,
he moves in a circle of light of his own making. He
1 See Quarterly Review, clxv. 74.
VOL. II. M

162 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
alone is a light of his own." Again, he speaks of his
daughter in the same strain — " My meek little Sara
is a remarkably interesting baby, with the finest
possible skin, and large blue eyes, and she smiles as
if she were basking in a sunshine as mild as moonlight
of her own quiet happiness."
Referring to his wife, in 1807, he says — "In less
than a week I go down to Ottery with my children
and their mother, from a sense of duty (i. e. to
his brother, the Rev. George Coleridge, who had
succeeded his father as head-master of the Ottery
St. Mary Grammar School) as far as it affects myself,
and from a promise made to Mrs. Coleridge, as far as
it affects her, and indeed of a debt of respect to her
for her many praiseworthy qualities."
This letter is a sufficient indication of the strained
and unhappy relations that now existed between him
and his poor wife, who was well-nigh worn out with
his insane conduct.
Having contracted the pernicious habit of lauda
num-drinking, with its "pleasurable sensations," as
an antidote to pain, his nerves soon began to shake.
He was visited by horrible dreams, and when thirty
years of age was a broken man. Perhaps the sad
dest words in which despondence was ever expressed
was in his Dejection, 1803, of which we quote the
following extract —

SEPARATION. 163
" A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief
In word, or sigh, or tear.
O lady ! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green ;
And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye !
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars ;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen ;
Yon crescent moon, fixed as if it grew,
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue ;
I see them all, so excellently fair,
I see, not feel, how beautiful they are !
My genial spirits fail ;
And what can these avail \
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast ! '
Lines such as these are the record of a life whose
happiness was hopelessly dead, and which saw even
in the sunshine of other men's joys the laughing
mockery of his own misery. What home could have
been more wretched than his ? What wife more un
kindly used ? What more natural than that she
should grow tired of such a life ? — her husband the
slave of opium, and the wreck of his former self.
His face had become sallow, his eye wild, his hand
and step tottering. Picture a woman left with a man
who was MTont to remark, " Conceive whatever is most
M 2

164 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
wretched, helpless, hopeless, and you will form a
notion of my state." His sense too of his degradation
was acute, for he would bitterly exclaim, " Conceive
a spirit in hell, employed in tracing out for others the
road to that heaven from which his crimes exclude
him." Meanwhile he left his wife and children to be
mainly supported by friends, and his son Hartley was
sent to college on alms collected by Southey. So
indifferent, too, had he grown, that he never wrote to
his wife or children, or even opened a letter from
them. Lamb truly said, Coleridge " ought not to
have or wife children ; he should have a diocesan
care of the world ; no parish duty." It is unnecessary
to trace further the miserable story of Coleridge's
domestic life, in the duties of which he was so terribly
wanting ; for how can true greatness be compatible
with the grievous wrong inflicted by the desertion of
wife and neglect of children ? It has been truly
remarked that it was not his genius that mastered
him, but his weakness.
If Charles DickeDS and Catherine Hogarth could
have foreseen how slowly and surely the coming
years were to sunder their hearts and lives, they
would surely have foreborne to plight their troth.
They were married on the 2nd April, 1836, and for
many years were thoroughly happy together — a cir-

SEPARATION. 165
cumstance which rendered it all the more sad that,
after such a long term of married life, they should
have separated from one another.
Many a charming picture of Dickens' home-life
is contained in his letters recently published, from
which it is evident that he was as happy and
united in his domestic relations as could be desired.
Devotedly fond also of his children, he betrayed
his love by indulging them in any way he thought
would conduce to their pleasure, and was never too
busy to occupy himself in their occupations, lessons,
amusements, and general welfare. On one occasion,
when a hackney-coach rattled up to the door of the
house in Devonshire Terrace, four little folk, two
girls and two boys, were hurried down and kissed
through the bars of the gate, because their father
was too eager to wait till it was opened. At another
time he would sit beside the cot of one of his little
girls, who had been startled, and hold her hand in
his till she fell asleep. And as his children grew
older he adapted himself to their amusements, and
his daughter tells us that never were there " such
magic -lanterns as those shown by him ; never such
conjuring as his." When absent from home he would
send the most amusing and humorous accounts of
his travels, his letters always being eagerly awaited,
a couple of extracts from which we quote below.

166 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Writing on Nov. 1st, 1838, from Shrewsbury, he
says —
"My dearest Kate,
" I received your welcome letter on arriving
last night, and am rejoiced to hear that the dear
children are so much better. I hope that in your
next, or your next but one, I shall learn that they
are quite well. A thousand kisses to them. I wish
I could convey them myself." After giving her a
chatty account of his movements, he concludes,
"God bless you, my darling. I long to be back
with you again, and to see the sweet baby.
" Your faithful and most affectionate husband."
Many years aftewards, in a letter from Rome, dated
Nov. 14th, 1853, he concludes by telling his wife —
"I shall be glad to think of your all being at
home again, as I suppose you will be soon after the
receipt of this. Will you see to the invitations for
Christmas Day, and write to Lsetitia ? I shall be
very happy to be at home again myself, and to
embrace you, for of course I miss you very much,
though I feel that I could not have done a better
thing to clear my mind and freshen it up again than
make this expedition. God bless you ! Take care
of yourself."
But as years rolled on there came a change over

SEPARATION. 167
his life, and writing to his friend Forster, he was
obliged to confide in him, for his mind was nervous
and over-excited. " Poor Catherine and I," he
admits, " are not made for each other, and there
is no help for it. It is not only that she makes
me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too,
and much more so. She is exactly M7hat you know
in the way of being amiable and complying ; but
we are strangely ill-assorted to the bond there is
between us. Her temperament will not go with
mine." Matters unfortunately did not improve, and
the wife, whose presence had once been the sunshine
of his home, now wore him.
In another letter, dated March 1858, he makes
a further painful allusion to his domestic affairs,
writing —
" It is not with me a matter of will, or trial, or
sufferance, or good-humour, or making the best of it,
or making the MTorst of it, any longer. It is all
despairingly over."
It proved as he anticipated, and two months later
on, after living together for twenty years, they
separated, Dickens allowing his wife £600 a year.
Such a course, however, did not fail to attract con
siderable notice. "Scandal," as it has been ob
served, "has not only a poisonous, but a busy
tongue ; and when a well-known public man and his

168 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
wife agree to live apart, the beldame seldom neglects
to give her special version of the affair. So it hap
pened here. Some miserable rumour was whispered
about to the detriment of Dickens' morals." Such
" a lie stung him almost to madness, and he published
an article, handling it as it deserved, in Household
Words for June 12th, 1858, protesting vehemently
against an anonymous libel which implicated others
as well as himself." Independently of the cruel
aspersion cast upon his private character, Dickens
justly felt an honourable pride in the world-wide
popularity which his writings had gained. He knew
" that his books, and he himself, were a power for
good, and he foresaw how greatly his influence would
suffer if a suspicion of hypocrisy — the vice at which
he had always girded — were to taint his reputation."
In truth, so exasperated was he at the grievous
wrong done him, that he even quarrelled with his
publishers, Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, because they
did not use their influence to get Punch to publish
the statement which had appeared in Household
Words. But, false as was the ill-natured scandal
regarding Dickens, there could be no doubt of his
complete alienation from his wife. After their
separation she rapidly passed altogether out of his
affections ; and when he died she does not even seem
to have been summoned to his death-bed.

SEPARATION. 169
In the fashionable world much commotion M-as
caused in the last century by the unfortunate rupture
between the Duke of Grafton and his wife — the only
child of Lord Ravensworth — who were quite publicly
separated, the marriage being dissolved on 23rd
March, 1769, by an Act of Parliament. Horace
Walpole, writing to the Earl of Hertford, thus refers
to this scandal in high life —
" You ask about what I had mentioned in the
beginning, the dissensions in the house of Grafton.
The world says they are actually parted : I do not
believe that, but will tell you exactly all I know.
His Grace, it seems, has kept one Nancy Parsons, one
of the commonest creatures in London, once much
liked, but out of date. He is certainly grown un
commonly attached to her ; so much, that it has put
an end to all his decorum. She was publicly with him
at Ascot Races, and is now in the forest, I do not
know if actually in the house. At first I concluded
this was merely stratagem to pique the Duchess ; but
it certainly goes further. Before the Duchess laid in,
she had a little house in Richmond Hill, whither
the Duke sometimes, though seldom, came to dine.
During her month of confinement he was scarcely in
town at all, nor did even come up to see the Duke of
Devonshire. The Duchess is certainly gone to her
father."

170 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
It is no wonder that the Duchess, in defence of
her own honour, could not tolerate such an open
scandal — a scandal which has been immortalized, in
no measured terms, by no less a person than Junius —
" The example," he says, " of the English nobility
may, for aught I know, sufficiently justify the Duke
of Grafton when he indulges his genius in all the
fashionable excesses of the age ; yet considering his
rank and station, I think it would do him more
honour to be able to deny the fact than to defend it
by such authority. But if vice itself could be excused,
there is a certain display of it, a certain outrage to
decency and violation of public decorum which, for
the benefit of society, should never be forgiven. It
is not that he kept a mistress at home, but that he
constantly attended her abroad. It is not the private
indulgence, but the public insult, of which I com
plain. The name of Miss Parsons would hardly have
been known if the First Lord of the Treasury had
not led her in triumph through the Opera House,
even in the presence of the Queen."
Over eleven years William Hazlitt had been married
to Miss Stoddart, " an excellent letter-writer, a good
talker, and well read in literature ; " when, on
putting his boy to school, he gave him a solemn
letter of advice on life generally — including marriage.
" If ever you marry, I wish you to marry the

SEPARATION. 171
woman you like : do not be guided by the recom
mendation of friends. Nothing will atone for or
overcome an original distaste; it will only increase
from intimacy." And then he adds — " Women care
nothing about poets, philosophers, or politicians ;
they go by a man's look and manner. ... If you
run away with a pedantic notion that they care a
pin's-point about your head or your heart, you will
repent it too late."
But Hazlitt in giving this advice was contradict
ing himself, for he had been in love with a series of
charmers — with Miss Windham, Miss Ralston, and a
" Sally Shepherd." In the meantime, on the ground
of incompatibility, a formal separation had taken
place between husband and wife, to be followed later
on by a dissolution of the marriage contract.
When separated from his wife, he took lodgings
in Southampton Buildings, and here it was he fell
desperately in love Math Sarah Walker, his landlord's
daughter. The girl was at first flattered by his
extravagant homage, but, growing tired of his at
tentions, she frankly avowed to him that she had
been attached to another, and that, although it had
turned out unfortunately, she never could forget the
object of her affections. But this confession, instead
of improving matters for her, delighted the infatuated
man. " May God for ever bless you ! " he tells her ;

172 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
" how can I thank you for your condescension in
letting me know your sweet sentiments % You have
changed my esteem into adoration ! "
Hazlitt insisted on loving on ; and his conduct
at times became so extraordinary towards Sarah,
that her situation was almost unendurable ; and her
friends naturally concluded that this lodger was a
little astray in his wits.
But Sarah Walker's opportunity came ; for, in
February 1822, he went away to Scotland to arrange
his divorce ; and during his absence her family wisely
resolved to put an end to the matter. When he
found her behaviour altered towards him, and that
she declined his tickets for the play in a very stiff
note, his agonies were acute, and writing to his friend
Mr. Patmore, he says —
" What have I suffered since I parted with you !
A raging fire in my heart and in my brain that I
thought would drive me mad. The steamboat
seemed a prison — a hell — and the everlasting waters
an unendurable repetition of the same ideas — my
woes. The abyss was before me, and her face, where
all my peace was centred — all lost ! I felt the eternity
of punishment in this world. Mocked, mocked by
her in whom I placed my hope. Writhing, writhing
in misery and despair caused by one who hardens
herself against me. I wished for courage to throw

SEPARATION. 173
myself into the waters ; but I could not even do
that ; and my little boy, too, prevented me, when I
thought of his face at reading of his father's death,
and his desolation in life."
Meanwhile the divorce was proceeding with every
certainty of being obtained ; but what was the good
of becoming a free man if he were " mocked by her
on whom his heart by its last fibre hung " ? Almost
beside himself with thoughts of this kind, the happy
day at last came when he would see her again — and
see her he did, " in a loose morning-gown, her hair
curled beautifully."
But she was cold and scornful ; and, after listening
to all he had to say with calm indifference, went
away. The long pent-up storm now suddenly burst,
his restraint gave way, and he became all but a
lunatic. " He tore off the locket with her hair which
he wore round his neck, and trampled it into pieces."
" I shrieked curses on the name of my unfeeling
love ; and the scream I uttered — so pitiful, so pierc
ing was it that the sound terrified me — instantly
brought the whole house — father, mother, lodgers.
They thought I was destroying myself and her. I
had gone into the bed-room to hide myself from
myself ; and as I came out of it raving mad, with the
new sense of shame and lasting misery, Mr. F 
said, ' She's in there ; he's got her in there ! ' "

174 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
The mad fit subsided ; but Hazlitt continued in a
very unsettled state of mind, most persons naturally
wondering what was the matter with him.
At last the divorce was obtained ; but to what
end % He meets his " delicious creature " with a
former lodger, a Mr. C  , an old admirer. This
was the climax to his love romance ; for now, fancy
ing that the scales had fallen from his eyes, he was
clear of his self-delusion, and found that she was " a
practised callous jilt — a regular lodging-house decoy."
Although he married another lady from whom, in a
short time, he obtained a separation, it is probable he
never lost his fatal passion for Sarah Walker.
The unhappy separation of Edmund Kean from
his wife came to pass through the most untoward
occurrence, and one indeed which was mainly due
to his very greatness. His marriage had been some
what romantic. In 1808, when appearing at the
Gloucester Theatre as Sambo in Laugh when you Can,
a Miss Chambers — member of a highly respectable
Waterford family — took the part of Mrs. Mortimer.
On this occasion Kean was so imperfect that he
not only spoiled his own part but that of Miss
Chambers, who, greatly amazed, asked the manager
" who that shabby little man with the brilliant eyes
was." Kean overheard the remark, and calmly walking

SEPARATION. 175
up to the manager, asked, " Who the devil is
she ? "
The next night he had his revenge ; for, when
she forgot her part as Mary in John Bull, instead
of retorting her former discontent, he received her
apologies with all good-humour. From that moment
they became the best of friends, and ultimately
lovers. After staying three months at Gloucester,
the company removed to Stroud, where a secondary
part being assigned him in Hamlet, he quietly dis
appeared for three nights. Miss Chambers was much
agitated, and advised the desirability of the neigh
bouring ponds being dragged ; but before such a
step was taken he turned up. In answer to the
young lady's inquiries, he said, " I have been in the
fields — in the woods ; I am starved ; I have eaten
nothing but turnips and cabbages since I've been
out ; but I'll go again — and as often as I see myself
put in such characters. Damme, I won't play second
to any man living except John Kemble."
In July of the same year Edmund Kean and Mary
Chambers were married at Stroud, the bridegroom
in his twentieth, and the bride in her twenty-ninth
year. To say the least, the marriage was imprudent,
and he had only himself to blame when he found
that Mary Chambers, instead of being, as he thought,
an heiress, was penniless. The bridesmaid lent him

176 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
half-a-sovereign to buy the wedding-ring, and the
landlady of the 'Dog Tavern,' Cheltenham, good-
naturedly gave them a breakfast. At this time
there was every appearance of a brilliant career
before him ; no presentiment of the coming unhappy
division between himself and his wife having dark
ened his horizon. But the storm in after years
burst over his life — giving the scandal-loving circles
of London endless amusement — and which, whilst
ruining all domestic happiness, injured for a time
his position on the stage. The painful revelation
that Kean had loved another man's wife better than
his own was a startling sensation. And yet, in
justice to Kean, it must be acknowledged that the
fault was not wholly his own, having originated
thus: — One night in 1818, when Othello was played
at Taunton, the Moor was Edmund Kean, and so
overpowering was the great Desdemona scene in
the fourth act, that a lady — a Mrs. Cox— fainted
in one of the private boxes. She was removed to
the green-room, where Kean paid her every atten
tion, Mmich ultimately ended in his being formally
introduced to her. An intimacy followed, and
Kean, unable to resist the passionate overtures of a
beautiful and fascinating woman, yielded in 1821 to
an indiscretion for which he bitterly paid. And yet
in the midst of this miserable entanglement he

SEPARATION. 177
never forgot his wife and child, for, writing to
Mrs. Cox, he says —
" I cannot consent to sacrifice the interests of
my family. In their behalf I am firm ; when they
are secured, ask anything of me and it is yours,
but, till then, much as I love you, your interest
must yield to theirs."
It was in 1825 that his appearance in the divorce
suit of Cox v. Cox and Kean raised against him a
violent storm of unpopularity, which expressed itself
in a refusal to give him a hearing on the stage ;
although there can be no doubt that Alderman Cox
had connived at his wife's misconduct. But, towards
the close of his career, a reconciliation took place
with his son Charles and his wife. There was still
the same old love in his heart, stifled as it might
have been by an impetuous and erratic infatuation
for another ; and, when he came to himself, his
earnest desire was to have his wife once more by
his side. Pale and worn with illness, the sorrow-
stricken actor wrote with tearful eyes the following
distressing note to his wife —
"Dear Mary,
" Let us be no longer fools. Come home ;
forget and forgive. If I have erred, it Mras my head,
not my heart, and most severely have I suffered
VOL. II. N

178 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
for it. My future life shall be employed in con
tributing to your happiness ; and you, I trust, will
return that feeling by a total obliteration of the
past." 1
On receiving this she Mrent at once to Richmond,
and the sad memory of their estrangement was
wiped away in their interchange of tears.
It is not surprising that Walter Savage Landdr's
married life was unhappy, for in 1811 he met a
young lady at a ball, and determined on the instant to
marry her. Writing to his friend Southey, he informs
him that the same evening when he was begin
ning to transcribe his tragedy, he " fell in love with
a girl without a sixpence, and with few accomplish
ments ; she is pretty, graceful, and good-tempered,
three things indispensable to my happiness." A few
days later he wrote to his mother, telling her that
the name of his "intended bride is Julia Thuillier.
She has no pretensions of any kind, and her want
of fortune was the very thing which determined me
to marry her."
His little baroness, as he was in the habit of
calling his wife, was the daughter of a banker at
Banbury, whom ill-success had taken to other em
ployment in Spain, while his family made their
temporary home in Bath. Comparatively sudden as
1 Hawkins, Life of Edmund Kean, ii. 389.

SEPARATION. 179
Landor's marriage was, it would appear that the
idea had been for some time on his mind, for in a
letter to Southey in 1808 he says —
"I should have been a good and happy man
if I had married. My heart is tender. I am fond
of children, and of talking childishly. I hate even
to travel two stages. Never without a pang do I
leave the house where I was born. ... I do not
say I shall never be happy ; I shall be often so if
I live ; but I shall never be at rest."
Accordingly he was married, and shortly after
wards the newly-wedded couple took up their abode
at Llanthony ; but his embarrassments becoming
such as to make a temporary removal expedient,
he passed over to Jersey in May 1814, where Mrs.
Landor joined him with one of her sisters. Here
it was that the first breach occurred in his matri
monial relations. After some imprudent words on
her side, he rose early, walked across the island, and
embarked alone in an oyster-boat for France. From
Tours he wrote to Southey, acquainting him with
this domestic quarrel, which he said had arisen
from an ordinary misunderstanding, and had become
embittered by the language Mrs. Landor allowed
herself to use.
" All these things," he goes on to say, " with a
thousand variations, both of anger and mockery, and
N 2

180 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
all of them turning upon what she declared to have
been her own fault in marrying such an old man,
made her little sister burst into tears. Julia told
her not to be such a fool as to cry, that if she
cried it certainly should not be about me. I endured
all this a full hour and a half without a syllable of
reply ; but every kind and tender sentiment was
rooted up in my heart for ever. . . . No woman
could or ought to live with a man by whom such
language was merited ; nor could any man support
life with a woman from whom it fell undeserved. . . .
I am resolved to see her no more. I wish to have
only £160 a year for myself. It is enough. ... A
thousand times have I implored her not to drive
me to distraction ; to be contented if I acknowledged
myself in the wrong ; to permit me to be at once
of her opinion, and not to think a conversation
incomplete without a quarrel. The usual reply was,
' A pleasant sort of thing truly, that you are never
to be contradicted ! ' As if it were extraordinary
and strange that one should Mash to avoid it. She
never Mras aware that more can be said in one
minute than can be forgotten in a lifetime. For
the sake of her exercising her ingenuity, and of
improving my temper, she will cause me to die
among strangers, and probably in a mad-house. She
gave me my first headache, which every irritation

SEPARATION. 181
renews. It is an affection of the brain only, and
it announces to me that my end will be the most
miserable and the most humiliating."
As the Edinburgh Reviewed has remarked, it is
sad to place this last sentence by the side of one
of the very latest of his poems. In November 1863,
when his Heroic Ldylls were in the press, he sent
the following lines for insertion, but they were too
late, the volume being already made up —
TO ONE ILL-MATED.
" We all wish many things undone
Which now the heart lies heavy on.
You should indeed have longer tarried
On the roadside before you married, —
And other flowers have picked in jest
Before you singled out your best.
Many have left the search with sighs
Who sought for hearts and found but eyes.
The brightest stars are not the best
To follow in the way to rest."
But, as the same waiter observes, " it is small
reproach to any woman that she did not possess a
sufficient union of charm, tact, and intelligence to
suit Landor as a wife. He demanded beauty in
women as imperatively as honesty in men, and yet
was hardly submissive to its influence ; and while
he was intolerant to folly, he would have been
impatient of any competing ability."
i cxxx. p. 236. 1869.

182 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Happily a reconciliation took place, of which he
tells Southey in a letter dated from Tours, Jan.
23rd, 1815—
" Not long after I received your last letter I
received one from the sister of my wife. It
acquainted me with her extreme grief, and of an
illness which threatened to be fatal. This banished
from my mind all traces of resentment, and I wrote
instantly to comfort and console her. My own fear
is that I never shall be able to keep my promise
in its full extent, and forgive humiliating and in
sulting language. Certainly I never shall be so
happy as I was before ; that is beyond all question.
If there is a pleasure in pardoning, there is a pro
portionate pain in doubting whether we possess the
power." When settled at Como, the birth of his first child
gave him infinite pleasure, whom he named Arnold
Savage, after a speaker of the House of Commons,
having heard him once declare "that grievances
should be redressed before money should be granted."
Things went on fairly smoothly till 1835, Avhen
Landor again broke with his family at Fiesole, and
returned to England, finally settling at Bath. After
living there some years he returned to Fiesole, but
was still unable to live at peace with his family,
and as all his property had been made over to

SEPARATION. 183
them, he had not the means to live apart. Finally,
on an allowance made by his brothers, he settled
at Florence, where he spent the rest of his
days. Dr. Lardner, than whom few men have done more
to popularize scientific knowledge, was unfortunate
in his married life. In the year 1815, he was united
to Cecilia Flood, a niece of the celebrated Irish orator,
the contemporary of Grattan. But they had only
lived together for the short space of five years when
they were separated in the year 1820 by mutual
consent. Twenty-nine years after this unhappy
occurrence a formal divorce took place, when the
Doctor took another wife — Mrs. Heaviside — his
divorced one dying in the year 1862.
According to an amusing story hatched by Father
Prout, and alluded to in the facetious song below, Dr.
Lardner made a special trip to Paris, to induce
Beranger the poet, to whom he had previously con
veyed a " handsome remuneration " through Dr.
Bowring, to sing or say a good word about the
Cabinet Encyclopaedia, also giving the poet a dinner
on the strength of the expected commendatory poem.
" Oh ! who hath not heard of the sword which old Dennis
Hung over the head of a Stoic %
And how the stern sage bore that terrible menace,
With a fortitude not quite heroic ?

184 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
There's a Dennis, the tyrant of Cecily hight ; 1
(Most sincerely I pity this lady, ah !)
Now this Dennis is doomed for his sins to indite
A Cabinet Cyclopaedia !
He press'd me to dine, and he placed on my head
An appropriate garland of poppies ;
And lo ! from the ceiling there hung by a thread
A bale of unsaleable copies.
' Puff my writings,' he cried, ' or your skull shall be crush'd ! '
' That I cannot,' I answered,«with honesty flush'd,
' Be your name Dionysius, or Thady, ah !
Old Dennis, my boy, though I were to enjoy
But one glass, and one song : still one laugh loud and long
I should have at your Cyclopaedia ! ' "
George, afterwards first Lord Lyttelton, whose
name was familiar to most persons in the last century
as an accomplished poet and historian, was the
subject of many contemporary allusions — his per
sonal ungainliness having been proverbial. Thus
Horace Walpole writes of him 2 — " With the figure
of a spectre and the gesticulations of a puppet, he
talked heroics through his nose, made declamations
at a visit, and played at cards with scraps of history
or sentences of Pindar." And Lord John Hervey
describes him in the same uncomplimentary terms —
" In his figure [he] was extremely tall and thin ; his
face was so ugly, his person so ill-made, and his
1 This is in allusion to the bill then before the Lords for
divorce from his wife, whose Christian name was Cecilia.
2 Reign of George IL, i. 292.

SEPARATION. 185
carriage so awkward, that every feature was a blemish,
every limb an encumbrance, and every motion a
disgrace ; but, as disagreeable as his figure was, his
voice was still more so, and his address more
disagreeable than either " — while an abominable
caricature introduces him as —
" Who's dat who ride astride de poney,
So long, so lank, so lean, so boney 1
Oh ! he be de great orator, Little-toney."
But notwithstanding his unprepossessing appear
ance, Lyttelton tried his influence on the fair sex ;
and the Delia of his youthful verse long outlived
the charms that " roused the poet's sigh." And
Walpole tells us how, after the accession of George
III., Catherine Dashwood and "Mrs. Boughton —
Lord Lyttelton's ancient Delia — are revived again in
a young court that never heard of them." It has
been suggested, too, that Johnson's manifest dislike
to, and depreciation of, Lyttelton, may have had its
origin in the Doctor's jealous recollections of a
preference shown in their youth, either by Miss
Boothby or Molly Aston, to Lyttelton ; but if so, it
could hardly have been, as Mr. Jesse remarks,1 owing
to the personal graces of the latter. But in the year
1741, Lyttelton found some one to appreciate him ;
for, falling in love with Lucy, daughter of Hugh
1 Celebrated Etonians, i. 180.

186 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Fortescue, of' Filleigh in Devonshire, he was ac
cepted, and marrying this lady, became the father of
Thomas, commonly known as " the wicked Lord
Lyttelton." The marriage, which was a thoroughly happy one,
Mras of short duration, his wife being snatched from
him in her confinement on January 19th, 1747, at
the early age of twenty-nine, after they had only
been married six years. His melancholy loss, hap
pening so unexpectedly, was a terrible blow to her
bereaved husband — a notice of her death being given
by Mrs. Delany in her Autobiography (ii. 451), M7ho
feelingly writes two days afterwards — " Poor Mrs.
Lyttelton has left a most disconsolate mother and
afflicted husband. She was happy in this world
according to our notion of happiness, and was an
agreeable and deserving woman, which makes her
much lamented."
It was to his wife's memory that Lyttelton com
posed his famous Monody, a stanza from which we
quote as a specimen of this once much-talked-of and
criticized production. " In vain I look around,
O'er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry ;
Where oft we used to walk,
Where oft in tender talk
We saw the summer sun go down the sky ;

SEPARATION. 187
Nor by yon fountain's side,
Nor where its waters glide
Along the valley, can she now be found.
In all the wide-stretched prospect's ample bound,
No more my mournful eye
Can aught of her espy,
But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie."
Unfortunately Lyttelton had in former years
unintentionally offended Smollett — then a young
medical student — who now took the unjustifiable
opportunity of taking his revenge by turning Lyttel-
ton's Monody into ridicule, and writing a Burlesque
Ode, which purported to be an elegy on his grand
mother. This cruel and unwarrantable act, apart
from the pain it produced, was unworthy of Smollett.
" Her liberal hand and sympathizing breast
The brute creation kindly bless'd :
Where'er she trod, grimalkin purred around ;
The squeaking pigs her bounty own'd ;
Nor to the waddling duck, or gabbling goose,
Did she glad sustenance refuse.
The strutting cock she daily fed,
And turkey with his snout so red ;
Of chickens careful as the pious hen ;
Nor did she overlook the tomtit or the wren ;
While redbreast hopped before her in the hall,
As if she common mother were of all.
For my distracted mind
What comfort can I find ;
0 best of grannams ! " etc.
But, leaving this unpleasant incident, it may be
noted that Lord Lyttelton could well afford to ignore

188 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
it. Acquainted with most of the talented and
eminent men of his day, his merits were justly
estimated despite the remarks of such ill-natured
foes. Indeed more than one of the men of genius
of his day have, as Mr. Jesse says, "left on record
the highest tribute to his virtues and talents " —
Fielding having dedicated to him his Tom Jones, and
Pope perpetuated his friendship for him in his
undying verse.
Returning to his wife's death, it would seem that
it was only a few months before its occurrence that
Lord Lyttelton, when at his friend Gilbert West's
seat at Wickham — the scene of his honeymoon —
wrote the following lines, which are in melancholy
contrast with those he was soon to write on a very
different occasion.
" Here first, my Lucy, sweet in virgin charms,
Was yielded to my longing arms ;
And round our nuptial bed,
Hovering with purple wings, the Idalian boy
Shook from his radiant torch the blissful fires
Of innocent desires ;
While Venus scattered myrtles o'er her head."
It was two years after his wife's death that, weary
of his lonely existence, he married again ; his second
wife being Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Birch.
But this marriage was just as unhappy as his previous
one had been the reverse ; and so the ill-assorted

SEPARATION. 189
couple separated after a season, never to re-unite.
Despite the gloom that was now cast over his
domestic life, he still pursued his active and busy
duties ; and although cheerful to all outward ap
pearance, the unhappy estrangement from his wife,
combined with the irreclaimable libertinism of his
only son, could not fail to sadden his latter days.
" Poor Lord Lyttelton," writes Mrs. Delany a few
days after his death, " is happily released from a
miserable life. The wretched conduct of his wicked
son, they say, broke his heart." And so ended a life
which, having tasted the sweetness of true love, was
destined to chequered days of disappointment and
sorrow through union with a woman who was
thoroughly unsuited to him.
Lord Melbourne's marriage, June 3rd, 1805, with
Lady Ponsonby Caroline, only daughter of the third
Earl of Bessborough, M'as a complete failure. It
blighted the best part of his life, and mortified him
with unhappy recollections to his dying day. And
yet his wife had indisputable attractions, and never
entirely lost her power of fascinating him, for she
had many pretty ways. After one of their serious
quarrels, for instance, when everything was arranged
for a separation, and he had gone clown to Brocket
till the formal documents could be prepared, she
followed him, and laid down like a faithful dog at

190 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
the door of his room, so that he could not come out
without treading on her. The following morning
when the lawyers arrived they found her sitting on
his knee, feeding him M'ith bread-and-butter. For
six or seven years they lived without any open
outbreak, she in the meantime giving birth to a son,
Aug. 11th, 1807, to whom the Prince stood sponsor.
Unluckily for both she met Byron under circum
stances which she thus described to Lady Morgan,
and which show how much she was fascinated by
him — " I heard nothing of him till one day Rogers
said, ' You should know the new poet,' and he offered
me the MS. of Childe Harold to read. I read it,
and that was enough. Rogers said, ' He has a club
foot, and bites his nails.' I said, ' If he was as ugly
as iEsop I must know him.' It was one night at
Lady Westmoreland's, the women were all throwing
their heads at him ; Lady Westmoreland led me up
to him ; I looked earnestly at him, and turned on
my heel. My opinion in my journal was ' mad, bad,
and dangerous to know.' A day or two passed ;
I M^as sitting with Lord and Lady Holland M'hen
he was announced. Lady Holland said, ' I must
present Lord Byron to you.' Lord Byron said, ' That
offer was made to you before ; may I ask M'hy you
rejected it 1 ' He pegged permission to come and
see me ; he did so the next day. Rogers and Moore

SEPARATION. 191
were standing by me ; I was on the sofa ; I had just
come in from riding ; I was filthy and heated. When
Lord Byron was announced I flew out of the room
to wash myself. When I returned, Rogers said,
' Lord Byron, you are a happy man. Lady Caroline
has been sitting here in all her dirt with us, but when
you were announced she flew to beautify herself.'
Lord Byron Mashed to come and see me at eight
o'clock, when I was alone. That was my dinner
hour. I said he might. From that moment for more
than nine months he almost lived at Melbourne
House." x
Although highly imprudent in her conduct towards
Byron, she retained her social position to the last,
displaying at times outbursts of well-directed en
thusiasm. At a dinner given in Paris, after the
Occupation in 1815, she inquiringly asked one of
the party whom she considered the most distinguished
man she ever knew " in mind and person, refinement,
cultivation, sensibility and thought." The guest
replied, " Lord Byron." " No," was the reply ; " my
own husband, William Lamb."
But of her intense infatuation for Byron there can
be no doubt ; — the story of her stabbing herself with
scissors or a metal, dagger-shaped paper-knife being
confirmed by a document preserved among the Byron
1 Lady Morgan's Memoirs, ii. 202.

192 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
relies. Her constant attention, however, ultimately
bored him, and led to that conduct on his part
which was as ungallant as it was cruel. One day,
visiting his lodgings M'hen he was out, and finding
Beckford's Vathek on the table, she wrote under his
name at the commencement of the volume, " Remem
ber me ! " to which he added these uncomplimentary
lines — " Remember thee ! remember thee !
Till Lethe quench life's burning stream,
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream.
Remember thee ! ay, doubt it not,
Thy husband too shall think of thee :
But neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me."1
Although Lady Caroline was in the habit of
speaking of her husband as the kindest and noblest
of men, according to Lady Morgan she said, " He
cared nothing for my morals. I might flirt and go
about with what men I pleased. He was privy to
my affair with Lord Byron, and laughed at it. His
indolence rendered him insensible to everything.
When I ride, play, and amuse him, he loves me.
In sickness and suffering he deserts me. His violence
is as bad as my own."
It would seem, however, that this unfortunate love
1 See Quarterly Review, cxlv. 203-5.

SEPARATION. 193
for Byron was not the cause of her separation from
Lord Melbourne, so much as an alleged act of cruelty
to her page. " The boy was a little espiegle, and
would throw detonating balls into the fire. Lord
Melbourne always scolded me for this, and I the boy.
One day I wras playing ball with him ; he threw a
squib into the fire. I threw the ball at his head ;
it hit him on the temple, and he bled. He cried
out, ' Oh, my lady, you have killed me ! ' Out of my
senses, I flew into the hall and screamed, '0 God,
I have murdered the page ! ' The servants and
people in the streets caught the sound, and it was
soon spread about. William Lamb would live with
me no longer." Henceforth he was separated from
her at intervals, for it was evident that after the
shock of Byron's death in 1824, whose funeral she
met when driving in an open carriage, she was
suffering from a disordered intellect, a circumstance
which explained much of her eccentric conduct.
It is further related that, one day entering the
dining-room when the butler was arranging the
dinner-table decorations, she complained that they
lacked feature, expression, and elevation, and that
the centre-piece was too low. Then, ordering its
removal, she stepped into the vacant place and
assumed a particular attitude to denote what she
meant. Such extraordinary conduct frightened the
VOL. n. o

194 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
butler, who " rushed from the room, and finding her
husband in the library, begged him for God's sake
to come to the rescue. The moment he saw her he
only said in the gentlest tone of expostulation,
' Caroline, Caroline ! ' then took her in his arms and
carried her out of doors into the sunshine, talking
of some ordinary subject to divert her attention from
what had happened. That evening she received her
friends with as calm a look and tone of happiness
as in happier days ; but what an ordeal for him to
undergo ! "
Passing over the remainder of her sad and unhappy
life, it M'as on Jan. 23rd, 1828, that her husband
left Ireland, and on his arrival at Melbourne House
found her dying. It was when he saw her low
prostrate condition, with all the waywardness of her
former self for ever gone, that somewhat of his
former love returned, especially when he heard how
she had valued and treasured his letters — her dearest
solace. It was a touching finale to a spoilt life, but
it had this redeeming point ; for it proved that, in
spite of all her wilfulness and folly, her husband was
beyond all doubt passionately fond of his wife. She
retained to the last a strong influence over him, and
years after her death he used to speak of her with
tears, and ask moodily, " Shall we meet in another
world?" And here the curtain drops.

SEPARATION. 195
In 1804, Mulready, when but eighteen, married
a damsel who was a year older than himself, and in
his nineteenth year he became a father. The union
was a very unhappy one, and occasioned much of the
troubles of his life. His wife was the elder of the two
sisters of John Varley, at M7hose house she and Mul
ready met ; the well-known artist, who at ^intervals
exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy from 1811
to 1828.
It appears that about the time of their marriage
Mulready painted a miniature portrait in oil of his
wife. So far as it goes, says his biographer, " there is
something charming in the piquancy of this picture's
expression, having a bright and white skin, a decidedly
retrousse nose, the little head, its tawny-brown hair
drawn high up and off the ears, is, with all the fresh
ness of just perfected youth, balanced, so to say, on
the longest tendril of a neck, with a dainty half-
insolent air that might have piqued the coldest man
in love, and a more daring imprudence than Mulready
committed in marrying the fair damsel, who, if we
are to believe his pencil, sat to him.
" It may be that love had something to do with the
spirit of this little portrait. Unhappy as the marriage
was in respect to the continuance of the pair's united
lives, as well as with regard to their life-long separa
tion — a separation which lasted nearly fifty years, and
o 2

196 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
until death removed them both from human ken, — it
is hard on looking at this little portrait, having, as we
have, knoMTledge of the gulf about to yawn between
the boy-lover and the girl-sitter, who, when this little
thing was done, thought all was fair — it is hard not
to hope that they have now attained a better under
standing of each other than while life divided them."
The married experiences of the Hon. Mrs. Norton
were as curious as they were eventful. " Born to
some competence, heir of an illustrious name, dowered
with high and diversified talents, and loveliest among
the lovely ' children of the Islands,' her lot seemed to
possess all the elements of happiness." 1 She was the
second daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and grand
daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and his first
wife, the famous Miss Linley, and was known as one
of the " Three Graces " — a term applied to her two
sisters and herself. She was an undoubted beauty,
and in her early years was naturally flattered and
admired, Some idea of the charms with which she
was graced by nature may be gathered from Lord
Lytton's fine lines addressed to her —
" The queenly spirit of a star
That longed to tread the earth,
Passed into mortal mould — the hour
Made holy by thy birth ;

1 The Maclise Portrait Gallery, p. 54. W. Bates.

SEPARATION. 197
And kept its lustre and its power,
To teach the earth,
The wond'ring earth,
What shapes immortals are !
No human beauty ever bore
An aspect thus divine ;
The crown the brows of seraphs wore,
Hath left its marks on thine ; —
Th' unconscious glories round thee bear
The stamp divine
Of One Divine,
Who trod the spheres of yore.
Oh ! radiant stranger, dost thou dream
That thine may ever be
The hopes and joys of human things 1
— They were not meant for thee !
Below, for thee,
No home for thee,
Bright daughter of the Beam.
The yearning in thine absent eyes
Is for thy native shore :
And heaven is heard in every wind,
Thy heartstrings wandering o'er ;
In vain thou'st sought with us to find
The life before,
The light before
Thy spirit left the skies.
And Mirth may flash around, and Love
May breathe its mildest vow ;
But neither Mirth nor Love shall chase
The shadow from thy brow ;
There's nought in fate that can efface
From that pale brow,
That stately brow,
The memories born above.

198 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
To mortals mortal change is given,
The sunshine as the rain !
To them the comfort and the care —
The pleasure and the pain !
To thee and thine our very air
Is silent pain,
A heavy pain !
On earth thou askest heaven ! "
And yet, by some irony of fate, " there existed some
fatal factor — some lurking cipher, as it were, to mar
the sweet equation of life ; and domestic misery,
wounded affection, and unmerited shame were its
well-known story." 1 A cruel blight was soon to
bitter her fairest hopes, and this brilliant and
attractive young creature was to become the victim
of cruel usage and infamous report.
Married, when "hardly out of her tutelage," to
George Chappie Norton, younger brother of the third
Lord Grantley, it was her misfortune to find that
she had allied herself to a " selfish, worthless, indolent
sensualist," a man of no principle. Through her
influence with Lord Melbourne, the friend of her
father, he was appointed to a vacancy in the
Divisional Magistracy of London (Lambeth), and
afterwards to the Recordership of Guildford. At
first everything was as it should be, and the follow
ing letter by Mrs. Norton gives a pleasant and happy
picture of their early married life —
1 The Maclise Portrait Gallery, p. 55. W. Bates.

SEPARATION. 199
"King's Gate, July \lth, 1831.
" Dear Mrs. Moore,
" I was very glad to get news of my darling,
and I assure you I am thankful he is out of the
poisonous smell of paint, which had made me so ill
I was obliged to sleep at George Seymour's one
night. There never was such a mess ! But we are
having the nursery done very nicely. We have
changed the buff to stone-colour, which makes it
less like a garret, and larger and lighter looking ;
and I have ordered the white press to have new
panes put in it where they are broken, and to be
grained and varnished as nearly as possible like your
drawers which it stands on, with cloth or baize
underneath, to prevent the drawers being scratched.
The green windows make the house look so dark, that
we are going to have the house painted to look like
stone, the balcony carried out to the end of Mr.
Furnivall's, and two little mock windows to match
the store-room, which will make the house at least
four feet longer in appearance. There are improve
ments for you !
"I trust in heaven my little one will not have
caught cold from the rain the night of your arrival,
and that you have got comfortable lodgings. Tell
me in your next letter more about them — whether
they face the sea, and whether you have money

200 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
enouo-h, how Spencer liked the steam-packet, and
whether he has had any return of the relaxation and
sickness, poor lamb. I miss him dreadfully, and am
continually forgetting that he is not in the house,
and listening for his little voice on the stairs.
" Mr. Norton still intends coming on Monday,
but as he returns on Wednesday, I think an hotel
would be as cheap as lodgings, unless the person you
are with could let us have a bedroom and sitting-
room for those two nights, MThich is hardly worth
while. Perhaps Mr. Norton will let me stay one
week at Ramsgate ; in that case, if he had a little
sitting-room, I could sleep with you if your bed is
a good size — or if they had a room with a single
bed for me, we might eat our meals there, and have
no sitting-room. Pray, dear old woman, ask about
and get something low ; I am sure if it is cheap Mr.
Norton will let me stay the week, and I am so
poisoned here, that if I do not get a little fresh air,
my little November baboon will be born with a green
face. Try and manage this for me. . . . The King
is to sign the patent for Mr. Norton to be made
honourable on Monday, and then it is to be hoped
the John Bull paper will be satisfied. Mr. Norton
is very glad, and Lord Melbourne has been very
kind about it. Lord M. is better, and offered me two
tickets for the House of Lords on Tuesday, to hear

SEPARATION. 201
the King's speech, but I must come to my too-too,
who I hope will give me a ticket when he is Lord
Grantley. . . God bless you. "Caroline Norton."1
At this time their domestic life was apparently
happy, but ere long her husband began to get
irregular in his duties at the Court, and when Lord
Melbourne complained of this, and also refused to
advance him further pecuniary loans, his conduct
became reckless ; not only did he ill-treat his wife,
but actually tried to get from Lord Melbourne by
threats what he could not obtain otherwise, following
up his unwarrantable conduct by calmly demanding
of Lord Melbourne £10,000 as compensation for his
alleged misconduct with his wife.
This well-known trial — Norton v. Melbourne — took
place on June 22nd, 1836, before Lord Chief Justice
Tyndal, and ended in a verdict for the defendant.
At the conclusion of the case, the Attorney-General,
who led for Lord Melbourne, proceeded to the House
of Commons, where he was welcomed with quite an
ovation. This discreditable case, which had been
based on the most scurrilous and unfounded charges,
1 Her "too-too," born July 10th, 1829, was carried off by
death, and the title ultimately devolved on Thomas Brinsley,
"the little November baboon," who was born on November
14th, 1831.

202 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
had from the outset no chance of success, the principal
witnesses being servants who had been dismissed for
their unsteady conduct. But, at any rate, the trial
proved before the world what an abandoned and
worthless man poor Mrs. Norton had married, and
how deserving she was of sympathy and pity. Of
course, after this outrageous conduct they were
separated, living apart for forty years, although in
the interval the most wretched differences took place
between them respecting financial matters, and the
management of their children.
At last such an unhappy existence came to an end
by the death of Mr. Norton, on Feb. 24th, 1875, just
before that of his elder brother, the third Lord
Grantley. It was a desirable release from a life of
conjugal infelicity which was as discreditable to the
husband as it was a misfortune to the woman who
was so grievously sinned against in the unmerited
conduct she received.
But in the evening of her life a little sunshine was
vouchsafed her, for she became the wife of one of
her dearest and most valued friends, Sir William
Stirling Maxwell, M.P. of Pollok, Renfrewshire.
This event was noticed by Punch at the time of her
death, which happened so soon as three months after,
on June 15th, 1877, in a few touching and effective
lines —

SEPARATION. 203
" Truest of all, the friend, who at the last
Gave her marred life the shelter of his name,
And a short sunshine o'er her evening cast,
Denied her in the morning of her fame."
But her husband did not long survive her, dying in
Venice in the following January.
A sad picture is presented to us in the love-affairs
of the poet Shelley. Like his life, they were unhappy.
At the outset, his engagement with his cousin Harriet
Grove was broken off, on account of his expulsion
from Oxford, in March 1811, for the tract Mrhich he
published on The Necessity of Atheism. The blow was
heavy and well-nigh crushing, for the one he loved
was now hopelessly and for ever gone. Writing to
his friend Hogg, on Jan. 6th, 1811, he says —
" Believe me, I feel far more than I will allow
myself to express for the cruel disappointments which
I have undergone. Write to me whatever you wish
to say ; you may say what you will on other subjects,
but on that I dare not even read what you write.
Forget her ! What would I not have given up to
have been thus happy % . . . But she is gone. She
is lost to me for ever — for ever."
Five days later on he repeats the same language,
and emphasizes the utter hopelessness of his love by
anticipating her marriage —
" She is married to a clod of earth ; she will become

204 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
as insensible herself; all those fine capabilities will
moulder." Poor Shelley ! — his mind was now cruelly
tortured by the double shock he had undergone in
the loss of his cousin's love, coupled with his expulsion
from Oxford. One further extract of a letter written to
Hogg about this time — Jan. 12th, 1 8 11 — will show how
unbalanced his mind was under the weight of sorrow —
" To you I dare represent myself as I am : wretched
to the last degree. Sometimes one gleam of hope, one
faint solitary gleam, seems to illumine the darkened
prospect before me — but it has vanished. I fear it
will never return. . . I never, never can feel peace
again. What necessity is there for continuing in
existence ? But Heaven ! Eternity ! Love ! My
dear friend, I am yet a sceptic on these subjects.
Would that I could believe them to be as they are
represented !— would that I could totally disbelieve
them ! But no ! — that would be selfish. I still have
firmness enough to resist the last, this most horrible
of errors. Is my despair the result of the hot, sickly
love which inflames the admirers of Sterne or Moore?
It is the conviction of unmerited kindness, the con
viction that should a future world exist, the object
of my attachment would be as miserable as myself,
is the cause of it.
" I here take God {and a God exists) to witness,
that I wish torments, which beggar the futile de-

SEPARATION. 205
scription of a fancied hell, M'ould fall upon me ;
provided that I could obtain thereby the happiness
for what I love ; which I fear can never be."
It is impossible to say how far the events of his
future life were influenced by this unfortunate and
much to be regretted disappointment. Within six
months after his engagement with his cousin Harriet
Grove had been broken off, he eloped with Harriet
Westbrook, a school-fellow of his sister's, daughter of
a retired proprietor of " the Mount Street Coffee
house," a man of some substance. Harriet's home
life was far from happy, and in her extremity she
threw herself on the protection of Shelley, who
chivalrously married her, without being really in love ;
a step which induced his father to cut off supplies,
thus involving the poet in severe straits.
For a time the young couple seem to have been
fairly happy, making a series of visits to Edinburgh,
York, the Cumberland lake country, remaining at
Keswick till February 1812. Meanwhile Shelley,
gradually more and more engrossed in his literary
pursuits, began to realize that, however agreeable and
pretty Harriet might be, "she was not sufficiently
removed from common-place to make him a real
companion ; and when only twenty-two years of age
he fell in love with Mary Godwin — a disbeliever like
himself in the indissolubility of the marital contract,

206 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
and a person nearer to his own intellectual level."
A coolness consequently sprang up between Harriet
and himself, which ended in their separation.
Much comment has been made on Shelley's de
sertion of one whom he had so tenderly sworn to
protect ; but it would seem his suspicions had been
aroused as to her being unfaithful to him. Whether
Harriet was innocent — a matter which many of her
biographers maintain — is open to doubt ; but Shelley
believed she was guilty, and within a few weeks
after their miserable rupture he had ceased to love
his Mdfe. What followed was a sad, heartrending
story, and one which was as romantic as it was tragic.
Granted that Harriet's love for her husband had
really diminished, one cannot read her touching letter
without feeling that Shelley could soon have won
back her full affections, if so desirous.
In a letter addressed to Hookham the publisher,
she asks him to give "the enclosed to Shelley," and
adds —
" I would not trouble you, but it is now four days
since I have heard from him, which to me is an age.
Will you write by return of post and tell me what
has become of him, as I always fancy something
dreadful has happened if I do not hear from him.
If you tell me that he is well I shall not come to
London ; but if I do not hear from you or him, I shall

SEPARATION. 207
certainly come, as I cannot endure this dreadful state
of suspense." But, according to Professor Dowden,
" the time to retrace her steps was now past. Her
friend, her guardian, Shelley might still be, but never
again her husband. From an assurance that she had
ceased to love him, Shelley had passed on to a con
viction that she had given her heart to another, and
had linked her life to his." 1 The fact, too, cannot be
disguised, that Shelley loved Mary Godwin, and already
another's lips touched his " tremblingly " ; already the
"dark eyes" of another soothed his dream of pain;
and hence we are almost driven to conclude that the
real cause of the desertion of his wife was this passionate
love for Mary Godwin. The narrative of Peacock —
a friend of both parties — is interesting, and forcibly
bears out the same theory —
" Shelley might well have said, after first seeing
Mary Wollstonecraft GodMrin, ut vidi, ut perii. No
thing ever heard in tale or history could present a
more striking image of a sudden, violent, irresistible,
uncontrollable passion than that under which I found
him labouring when, at his request, I went up from
the country to call on him in London. Between his
old feelings towards Harriet, from whom he was not
then separated, and his new passion for Mary, he
showed in his looks, in his gestures, in his speech,
1 Quarterly Review, clxiv. 298, 299.

208 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
the state of a mind ' suffering, like a little kingdom,
the nature of an insurrection.' His eyes were blood
shot, his hair and dress disordered. He caught up
a bottle of laudanum, and said, ' I never part from
this.' Again, he said more calmly, 'Every one who
knows me must know that the partner of my life
should be one who can feel poetry and understand
philosophy. Harriet is a noble animal, but she can
do neither. I said, ' It always appeared to me that
you were very fond of Harriet.' Without affirming
or denying this, he answered, ' But you did not know-
how I hated her sister.' Shortly after this I received
a letter from Harriet, wishing to see me. I called
on her at her father's house in Chapel Street, Gros-
venor Square. She then gave me her account of
this transaction, which decidedly contradicted the
supposition of anything like separation by mutual
consent." But leaving this dark crisis in the poet's life, it
appears that on leaving Harriet he proceeded to the
Continent with Mary Godwin, returning to London
in Sept. 1814. While these two were enjoying their
illicit honeymoon, and forming plans for their new
life, the lonely woman left behind was brooding daily
more and more over a heart's sore that never could
be healed. Each day it made greater inroads into
her sorrow-broken nature, till hopelessly bowed down

SEPARATION. 209
with grief, she was found drowned in the Serpentine
on December 10th, 1816. And here we leave this
wretched woman, and will only add that the follow
ing lines, which Shelley wrote the next year, seem to
give a distinct allusion to this tragic event —
" That time is dead for ever, child,
Drowned, frozen, dead, for ever !
We look on the past,
And stare aghast
At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast,
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled
To death on life's dark river."
Within a very short time Shelley married Mary
Godwin, and energetically entered on that literary
career which materially helped to make his name
famous. At the age of twenty-two John Wilkes married
Miss Mead — ten years his senior and an heiress.
But their union had little chance of being a happy
one, for they had nothing in common, and Mrere as
ill-assorted as any couple possibly could be. She was
a strict dissenter, and Wilkes was ostentatiously a
member of the Church of England.
For some time after their marriage Wilkes and his
wife resided alternately at Aylesbury, and with Mrs.
Mead in Red Lion Court, London. Eventually he
became tired of living with his mother-in-law, and
removed to what was then a very fashionable locality,
VOL. II. p

210 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Great George Street, Westminster. Here he soon
caused his wife much sorrow and anxiety by his
extravagance and the undesirable friends he enter
tained; many of M'hom were notorious for their
profligacy and vice.
When it became clearly evident that their tastes
were thoroughly at variance, and that they would live
more happily apart, a formal separation took place ;
Wilkes retaining the custody of his infant daughter,
" whom he tenderly loved, and who in after years
repaid him with her undivided affection." A widower
in all but the name, he engaged with the zest and
eagerness of a young and giddy bachelor in the
occupation commonly knoMai as sowing wild oats.
Long after, writing to Mrs. Stafford on March 4th,
1778, he described his marriage —
" In my homage to please an indulgent father, I
married a woman half as old again as myself, of a
large fortune — my own being also that of a gentle
man. It was a sacrifice to Plutus, not to Venus.
I never lived with her in the strict sense of the
word — nor have I seen her for nearly twenty years.
I stumbled at the very threshold of the temple of
Hymen."1
1 Rae's Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox, 1874, p. 11.

CHAPTER V.
DISAPPOINTED LOVE.
Duke of Bridgewater — Henry Thomas Buckle — William Cowper
— Dr. Doddridge — Henry Fielding — Edward Gibbon — Lord
Mansfield — Turner — John Wesley.
That disappointments in love have, in many cases,
influenced the lives of great men, is a matter of
history. However much moralists may censure them
for what has often been considered weakness of
character, one cannot reject the fact that thousands
of useful lives have been, more or less, spoilt by
being crossed in love. Instances meet us on all sides,
and modern times afford us abundant illustrations of
this unfortunate experience in the love-affairs of those
who have been distinguished for their intellectual
eminence. The Duke of Bridgewater was early crossed in love
by a most beautiful girl — the young Duchess of
Hamilton ; but like a wise man he took refuge from
his disappointment in active and useful occupations,
and retiring to Worsley, devoted his time and
P 2

212 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
energies to canal-making. It was only natural that,
as a young nobleman, moving freely in circles where
were to be seen some of the finest specimens of
female beauty in the world, he should have been
captivated by their influence. One rumour had
pointed to the only daughter of Mr. Thomas Revell,
formerly M.P. for Dover, as the object of his choice,
an heiress with a fortune of about £130,000.
But the lady to whom he became strongly attached
MTas one of the celebrated Gunnings, who were then
the reigning beauties at Court. The object of
the Duke's affections was Elizabeth, the youngest
daughter, and perhaps the most beautiful of the
three. She had been married to the fourth Duke
of Hamilton, in Keith's Chapel, Mayfair, in the year
1752, "with a ring of the bed-curtain, half an hour
after twelve at night." But the Duke dying shortly
after, she was now a gay and beautiful widow, Math
many lovers in her train.
To this young widow the Duke of BridgeM'ater
paid his attentions, proposed, and was accepted.
The arrangements for the marriage were already in
progress when certain unpleasant rumours reached his
ear reflecting seriously upon the character of Lady
Coventry— his intended bride's eldest sister, who had
been described as being "more fair than she was
wise." Believing these reports, the Duke required

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 213
the Duchess of Hamilton to desist from further
intimacy with her sister — a condition which her
proud and high spirit would not brook ; and as the
Duke remained firm, the match was broken off.
Henceforth, the Duke of Bridgewater is said never
to have addressed another woman in the language of
gallantry. It is certain the Duchess of Hamilton
did not long remain a widow ; for in the course of
a few months she was engaged to, and afterwards
married, John Campbell, subsequently Duke of
Argyle. Horace Walpole, writing of the affair to
Marshal Conway, January 28th, 1759, says —
" You and M. de Bareil do not exchange prisoners
with half as much alacrity as Jack Campbell and the
Duchess of Hamilton have exchanged hearts. . . .
It is the prettiest match in the world since yours ;
and everybody likes it but the Duke of Bridgewater
and Lord Conway. What an extraordinary fate is
attached to these two women ! Who could have
believed that a Gunning would unite the great houses
of Campbell and Hamilton ? For my part I expect
to see my Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would
not venture to marry either of them these thirty
years, for fear of being shuffled out of the world
prematurely to make room for the rest of their
adventurers." After his disappointment, the Duke of Bridgewater

214 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
denied himself the graces of female society ; and the
seclusion which his love-affair had driven him to at
length grew into a habit. He never married, and at
last became so thoroughly embittered towards the
fair sex as not even to allow a woman-servant to
wait upon him.
" I expect so much in my wife," Henry Thomas
Buckle one day remarked, " that I cannot look for
money," and hence he resolved not to marry before
he had £3000 a year. With his ideas, too, on
education he considered he would not be justified
in marrying on less. As far as he was himself
concerned, this resolution was the great mistake
of his life. And yet his early life was not Math out
its love passages, for at the age of seventeen he
had bestowed his affections on a cousin, but found
that she was unluckily engaged to another cousin.
The fortunate rival was challenged to a personal
combat, but, however it resulted, the lady's matri
monial prospects do not appear to be altered
thereby. He next fell in love with another
cousin, who has been described as " a noble-hearted,
generous girl, above the common in understanding,
with a very large fortune, and with a liking for
him." In this case, too, he was doomed to disappointment.
And "it is truly sad to think," writes Mr. A. H.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 2 1 5
Huth,1 " that this marriage, so suitable to both parties,
and so important for him, should have been prevented
by the gross folly and superstition of the world ; a
superstition that he also was probably imbued with
at the time, or he would never have submitted to
it." It seems that Buckle and his cousin had been
thrown much together, but as soon as their respective
mothers noticed their growing affection, inspired by
the idea that marriage between cousins is harmful,
everything was done to discourage it. The result
in this case was, adds Mr. Huth, that "his mother's
death left him alone, unaccustomed to loneliness, with
no one by his side to alienate so terrible a loss."
In after years Buckle was often attacked by his
friends for not taking to himself a wife, and he went
so far as to acknowledge his mistake, for he MTas
alone — terribly alone in the world. "If at least
my little nephew had lived," he said, " I should
have had a friend in time ; I would have made
something of him. But what I love I lose ; and
now that I am nearly forty I am alone." Buckle's
condition was a solitary one, for he was a man M'ho
needed love and sympathy, and it is impossible to
say how far marriage might have altered the after
events of his life. It was a sad termination to a
fine intellectual life, when the Syrian sun shone hotly
1 Life and Writings of Henry Thomas Buckle, i. 52, 53.

216 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
down over the little company of faithful mourners'
as they committed his remains to their last resting-
place. The same prejudice against the intermarriage of
cousins spoilt Cowper's life.
He formed an early attachment with his cousin,
Theodora Jane Cowper, sister of Lady Hesketh, a
lady possessed of considerable attractions. But her
father refused to sanction any engagement between
the young couple on account of their relationship,
a disappointment which, it is said, not only clouded
all his future prospects, but affected him with a
depression of spirits from which, he suffered to the
end of his life. It must have caused him some
satisfaction that his cousin remained constant to
him, preserving with tender secret care the love-
poems he had written her, and M'hich, on being
opened after her death, on October 22nd, 1844,
revealed a sad love romance that had ruined what
might have proved the lasting happiness of two
lives. Cowper's friendship for Mrs. Unwin, the " Mary "
of his poems, is well known ; and it was to her care
and watchfulness that he owed his recovery from
the attacks of the constitutional malady to which,
at times, he was subject. It was through her in
fluence that he set to Mrork and published many

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 217
of his poems. But in the year 1796, a great affliction
befell him in her death, an event which sadly affected
him, and caused the most painful dejection — his mind
at times being now completely unbalanced. Lady
Hesketh nursed him, but her care was unavailing,
for the poet, the victim of melancholia, and tormented
in his mind by religious despair, died of dropsy on
April 25th, 1800. And thus closed a comparatively
cheerless life, which probably would have been very
different had the marriage with his cousin been
allowed. One of the most remarkable love-letters known
to us is that in which the learned and pious Dr.
Doddridge made offer of marriage to Miss Jenny
Jennings, a young girl in her sixteenth year. At
that time Dr. Doddridge was pastor of a church in
Northampton, and principal of a theological academy
or college for Nonconformist ministers. Miss Jen-
nings was daughter of a theological tutor under
whom Dr. Doddridge had studied at Knibworth,
in Leicestershire, and was a bright and well-educated
girl. She had been a pupil of Doddridge, and never
regarded him in any other light than a grave preceptor.
Jenny was living with her now widoMred mother,
when they were one day surprised by receiving the
extraordinary epistle we quote below, which was
printed for the first time in Memories of Seventy

218 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Years,1 an interesting volume descriptive of the
Aikin and Barbauld family and their friends.
Jenny Jennings declined Dr. Doddridge's offer,
and became after a few years the wife of the Rev.
John Aikin of Warrington. There was no very great
disparity of age, of which the good doctor says so
much, he being only twenty-eight when he wrote
the love-letter. Had he waited two years there
would have been little to object to in the ages of
thirty and eighteen. We are told that the letter
is written in a very small, beautiful hand, and
though intended for the daughter, is directed to
Mrs. Jennings, in Harborough, Leicestershire, and
dated — "Northampton, May 2,9th, 1730.
"Dear Madam,
" I owe dear Miss Jenny and her good
mamma my earliest thanks for all the pleasure which
I had in the company of both at Harborough, and
must confess that when I left it, I hardly expected
so much as I found in conversing with Miss Cotton
at Maidwell. It seems to me that I am going into
a kind of solitude when I am leaving you, but it
proved otherwise on Friday. Besides the satisfaction
I always find in the conversation of so valuable a
friend as Lady Russell, the day I mentioned before
1 Pages 27—29.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 219
gave me a great deal. I know you hear this M'ith
a charitable pleasure, and flatter yourself with a
secret hope that she is making a conquest on a fond
heart, from which you might apprehend some further
trouble. Of that, madam, you will judge when I
tell you that the most delightful part of her con
versation was that which turned upon her father
and mother, of whom she gave the following
account, which I humbly recommend to your serious
perusal." Here follows an account of her marriage, and he
concluded by saying —
" It is possible (you see) for a man of a very
agreeable and valuable character, and for a minister
too, deliberately to choose and passionately to love
a lady considerably younger than himself, even an
infant of fifteen (and how much more one who
will be sixteen in October), and he may be content
for life, fond and proud of that choice.
" And then secondly and lastly (which is much more
surprising than the former), that a lady of that tender,
impressive age may bear a courtship (not the dullest
or most ^despicable in the world) for two years with
out any sentiment of love or thoughts of marriage,
and yet afterwards receive it with an entire consent,
and that peculiar pleasure which I suppose nothing
upon earth can give but the surrender of the heart

220 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
to a worthy man who has deserved it, by a long course
of services and suffering.
" You must pardon me, madam, if after all this I
conclude with my hearty wishes, that if we live to the
year 1770, a daughter every way agreeable and valuable
as Miss Cotton may be telling the same story (as far
as the inferiority of my character will admit) of the
lovely infant who is now smiling at so extravagant
a thought, and her most affectionate friend and
obliged humble servant, "P. Doddridge."
In few cases M'as the influence of a good and
sweetly amiable woman more marked, than in the
case of Henry Fielding, who, at the time of his mar
riage with Charlotte Craddock, was not only steeped
in a life of pleasure, excitement, and selfish indulgence,
but was daily giving way more completely to those
irregularities of life which threatened to damage his
prospects. It has been asserted that the unfortunate
issue of his first love romance was partly the cause
of his wild conduct, the disappointment having
severely preyed upon his youthful spirits.
Always susceptible of the tender passion for the
fair sex, he had conceived a desperate attachment for
his cousin, Sarah Andrews. But this young lady's
friends had so little confidence in him that they took

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 221
the precaution of removing her out of his reach ; not,
it is said, until he had attempted an elopement.
Among his miscellaneous poems there appears an
imitation, or " modernization " — as he calls it — of the
Sixth Satire of Juvenal, which he tells us was originally
" sketched out before he was twenty," and " was all
the revenge taken by an injured lover." His cousin
was afterM-ards married to a plain country gentleman,
and "in that alliance found, perhaps, more solid
happiness than she would have experienced in an
early and improvident marriage with her gifted kins
man." Her image, however, was never Mdiolly effaced
from his recollection, and the story goes that in the
portrait of Sophia Western, in Tom Jones, he has left
us a true picture of her beauty.
It was this disappointment that had probably largely
contributed to that reckless mode of living which,
with its loose principles and profligate habits, was
doing its utmost to spoil his character, when a kind
fortune threw in his path a grateful and pure-minded
woman, to whom in the twenty-seventh year of his
age he was married.
Charlotte Craddock was one of three sisters who
were among the most celebrated belles of Salisbury,
having a fortune of £1500, by no means an insignifi
cant sum in Fielding's eyes. A small estate, situated
at East Stour, in Dorsetshire, had come into his

222 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
possession after his mother's death ; and so happiness
and competence M'ere now Mathin his grasp.
Soon after his marriage he settled with his wife in
Dorsetshire, but quickly outran his income by his
extravagant habits. " His mansion," we are told,1
"was the scene of profuse hospitality and riotous
enjoyment. His horses and hounds were numbered
among the glories of the neighbourhood. His equipage
outvied in splendour and elegance the carriages of
his richer neighbours, and the yellow liveries of his
serving-men were long held in remembrance." The
day of reckoning came. In a very short time Fielding
found that all was spent and gone. It seemed like a
dream — a wild, incoherent vision. The very guests
who sat at meat with him now ridiculed his extra
vagance ; and in the midst of all his pecuniary
difficulties he had to escape from his creditors as best
he might, and to seek for a home and a livelihood in
some other sphere.
His poor wife ! — her little fortune was squandered
away and scattered to the winds, and not being " a
strong-minded woman, but rather, it would seem, a
fond and foolish one, she Mras dazzled by this brief
dream of pride and pleasure, and was too much grati
fied by her husband's popularity, and too proud of
his wit and agreeable qualities, to check him in his
1 Life of Henry Fielding, pp. 74, 75. Frederick Lawrence.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 223
mad career." Hence he had to begin life again in
poverty, but through his adversity the world has been
the chief gainer ; necessity compelling him to exercise
in earnest his great intellectual abilities. But the
shock had been too much for his wife, which had
been sufficient to try the strength of even a more
vigorous frame than hers. " Continual experiences
of narrow circumstances, constant anxieties, many
privations, however cheerfully borne, undermined
her constitution," and after many months of de
clining health she caught a fever, and died in his
arms. The blow with which Fielding was now stricken
heavily taxed his powers of endurance ; poverty with
his wife he could bear, but her loss he could not.
Hence he mourned her death as one that could not
be comforted. So excessive was his grief that fears
were entertained lest the consequences might be fatal
to his reason. Tortured by remorse, he could not
dismiss the thought that through his folly and
thoughtlessness he had brought death on her who
had sacrificed everything for his happiness. He was
inconsolable, for in her loss he felt that " a dark
nio-ht had closed around him," to be succeeded by a
cheerless day.
We cannot wonder that this bereavement nervously
affected him, and made him take a more sensible view

224 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
of life. As soon therefore as he had recovered from
the stupor of his grief, he applied himself more
seriously to his profession. But without some one to
love him and preside over his love he could not
endure the blank which his wife's death had caused,
and the hate of solitude drove him to a second

marriage.

And yet " his biographers," writes Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, " seem to have been shy of dis
closing, that after the death of this charming woman
he married her maid. But the act was not so discredit
able to his character as it may sound. The maid had
few personal charms, but was an excellent creature,
devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost
broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of
his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found
no relief but from weeping along with her ; no solace,
when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the
angel they mutually regretted. This made her his
habitual confidential associate ; and in process of time
he began to think he could not give his children a
tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful
housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he
told his friends, and it is certain that her conduct as
his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good
opinion." The maiden name of Fielding's second wife was

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 225
Mary Macdaniel, who, after surviving him forty-eight
years, died at Canterbury in the year 1802, at a very
advanced age. This marriage incurred the contempt
of the fashionable world, but Fielding made up his
mind to show how little he cared for its opinion ; at
the same time, it must be remembered, the unfor
tunate circumstances of his past life somewhat justi
fied this marriage. As it has been remarked,1 Mary
Macdaniel was the confidential friend of his younger
wife, the depositary of her secrets, the companion of
many of her lonely hours. Amid the vicissitudes and
calamities of her husband's life, she must have had
need of a confidante. His business and pursuits carried
him much abroad, and she was frequently left for
days alone with her maid in their humble London
lodgings. The faithful attendant, therefore, who had
remained with his first wife amidst all reverses of
fortune, and who was often her only companion,
" must have known much of her beloved mistress
which had never been guessed at by the sorrowing
husband. From her lips he learned secrets which
would never have been revealed to him, by those
now cold in death ; learned of tears shed in solitude,
of silent griefs, of sufferings from him carefully
concealed." That Fielding then should have been induced to
1 Life of Fielding, p. 218. Lawrence.
VOL. II. Q

226 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
give his hand to this tried and faithful dependent,
and to endue her with the guardianship of his mother
less children, was not unnatural ; and it was a matter
of small account to him that he should have to en
counter the jeers and taunts of those who were un
able to understand his feelings, much less to sympathize
with him.
When living at Lusanne, in Switzerland, Gibbon
fell in love with Mademoiselle Curchod, daughter of
the Protestant pastor of Crassy — a young lady who
had gained general popularity by her wit and talent.
The historian, who was about twenty at this time,
was evidently much struck with this young lady ;
for writing of her, he says —
"The report of such a prodigy awakened my
curiosity ; I saw and loved. She permitted me to
make two or three visits at her father's house ; I
passed some happy days there in the mountains of
Burgundy, and her parents honourably encouraged
the connection. In a calm retirement, the vanity of
youth no longer fluttered in her bosom ; she listened
to the voice of truth and passion, and I might
presume to hope that I had made some impression
on a virtuous heart."
On returning to England, Gibbon spoke of his
engagement to his father, who so strongly disapproved
of it that he broke it off. " After a painful struggle,"

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 227
he says, " I yielded to my fate ; I sighed as a lover,
I obeyed as a son."
In early life, Lord Mansfield — then simply William
Murray — was sincerely attached to a young lady of
beauty, accomplishments, and birth ; but, in spite of
rising fame, her family would not listen to his suit.
Although she was favourably impressed with the
young lawyer, " her parents, not content," writes Lord
Campbell, "that her jointure and pin-money should
be charged upon his rood of ground in Westminster
Hall, married her to a squire of broad acres in a
midland county."
This was a terrible blow to poor Murray, and
caused him the greatest dejection, whereupon his
friend Pope tried to cheer him by addressing to him
an imitation of the sixth of the First Book of Horace's
Epistles, beginning thus —
" Not to admire, is all the art I know,
To make men happy and to keep them so.
Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech,
So take it in the very words of Creech."
After pointing out to him various instances of the
vanity of human wishes, he thus proceeds —
" If not so pleased, at council board rejoice
To see their judgments hang upon thy voice ;
From morn to night, at Senate, Rolls, and Hall.
Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all. Q 2

228 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
But wherefore all this labour, all this strife,
For fame, for riches, for a noble wife %
Shall one whom native learning, birth conspired
To form, not to admire, but be admired,
Sigh while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth,
Weds the rich dullness of some son of earth ?
Yet time ennobles or degrades each line ;
It brightened Craggs's, and may darken thine.
And what is fame ? the meanest have their day,
The greatest can but blaze and pass away.
Graced as thou art with all the power of words,
So known, so honour'd in the House of Lords,1
Auspicious scene ! another yet is nigh,
More silent far, whose kings and poets lie
Where Murray, long enough his country's pride,
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde."
But crossed in love, Murray was not easily cured
of his disappointment, and took a small cottage near
Twickenham, where he might brood over his mis
fortune. Happily, however, for him, he was soon
roused from his reflection by unexpectedly receiving
a brief in a case that was the talk of his day. The
prominent person in the coming trial was a sister of
Dr. Arne the composer, and was known for her
"exquisite beauty and attractions." She was a
popular actress, and had gained notoriety from a
1 Such discrepancy is there between law and poetry, writes
Lord Campbell, that Pope himself cannot pay a compliment to
a lawyer without giving a specimen of the bathos. These two
lines were happily ridiculed in Colley Cibber's parody —
" Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks ;
And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks."

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 229
dispute that had lately arisen between Mrs. Clive and
herself, as to which of them should take the part of
Polly Peachum in the Beggars' Opera. It appears
that this lady had been married to the worthless son
of the famous Colley Cibber, and many stories were
circulated of her gallantries ; one of which now took
a practical shape, and was the subject of the present
action brought by her husband ; the defendant being
a Colonel Sloper, who had a distinguished name in
the fashionable world. Without entering into the
particulars of this trial, it seems that Murray's
eloquence, which was lively and impressive, was the
theme of universal applause, his concluding words
being these —
" However, gentlemen of the jury, if it be thought
requisite to find a verdict for the plaintiff, we have
not a denomination of coin made small enough to
measure the damages."
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, with ten
pounds damages, said to be " a piece of bank paper of
the smallest value at that period in circulation."
Fortune had taken compassion on Murray in his
love disappointment, for his success at the bar was
now assured. " Henceforth," to quote his own words,
" business poured in upon me from all quarters, and
from a few hundred pounds a year, I fortunately
found myself in the receipt of thousands." With his

230 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
reputation thus established, Murray had no difficulty
to find a wife of his liking, and having been intro
duced to Lady Elizabeth Finch, a daughter of the
Earl of Winchelsea, he was married to her on the
20th November, 1738, an event which brought him
nearly half a century of happiness.
According to Lord Campbell,1 " the first four years
after his marriage must have been the happiest portion
of his existence. He was in the enviable situation
of being at the head of the bar, without an anxiety
or the envy which may be expected to attend the
possession of office. Hope held out to him the most
brilliant prospects of advancement, and, as yet, he
thought there must be supreme felicity in gratified
ambition." His passion for his former love was now only
remembered by him to illustrate the maxim which
he inculcated, that a first love may be succeeded by
a second as pure and as ardent. By a stroke of good
luck, which he could little have anticipated, prosperity
both in his private and public life had dispersed the
gloom that threatened to overcast his future, and
removed by a new chain of ideas a disappointment
which has marred so many a life.
A youthful disappointment made Turner give up
all thoughts of marriage. In his early days, when
1 Lives of the Lord Chief Justices, ii. 342 — 345.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 231
he increased his income, as a topographical draughts
man, by practising as a drawing-master, he fell in
love with the sister of an old school-fellow, to whom
he became engaged. But during a long prolonged
absence, some say of two years, his letters were in
tercepted by the young lady's step-mother, who dis
liked the match. The result was that on his return
home he found his betrothed engaged to another —
to a man for whom she had no affection. And yet
she would not break off this neMr engagement, because
the wedding-day was very near at hand, and she
considered that, as an honourable woman, she must
act consistently and keep her promise.
Turner used every argument in his power to per
suade her to retreat from what he regarded a mad
and rash step, but it was hopeless. On the appointed
day she was married, and Turner in consequence
of this bitter disappointment remained single all his
life. It was "a celibacy without chastity — a life in
which he formed indeed connections with the other
sex, but connections of a kind which could do nothing
for the elevation of his mind."1 His best hope lay
in a happy marriage with some cultivated woman,
and failing this there still remained for him one
possibility. " One of his mistresses might by chance,"
1 Life of J. M. W. Turner, pp. 43—45. P. G. Hamerton.

232 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
as Mr. Hamerton remarks, "have been a superior
person, which has happened occasionally in such
connections. He had not even, so far as we know,
any intimate friendship with a lady able to encourage
and understand him."
It was a sad misfortune for Turner that through
out his whole life he never came under an ennobling
feminine influence. His mother, too, who w7as bad-
tempered, finally became insane, having to be separated
from her husband and placed in seclusion. Hence,
taking all the surroundings of the great painter into
consideration, the dishonest and untruthful conduct
of his step-mother in spoiling his life is all the more
reprehensible. It is said, moreover, that the girl,
who condemned herself to the life-long misery of an
ill-assorted union, paid a cruel penalty for an over-
scrupulosity. According to some authorities, in the year 1815
Turner might possibly have been engaged to a young
lady — a relation of his friend Mr. Trimmer. Un
luckily, he was too timid to propose, wishing that the
lady "would but waive bashfulness, or, in other
words, make an offer instead of expecting one." But
she did not break through the conventional custom
of her sex in such matters, and Turner for want of
moral courage continued a bachelor when he might
probably have obtained a woman to make him happy.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 233
But Mr. Hamerton thinks that the lady had a happy
escape, since the artist had by this time become too
much attached to his own way of life to adapt it
readily to female exigencies.
Previous to his unhappy marriage with Mrs.
Vazeille, John Wesley, like most men, had not
escaped the influence of early love. His first attach
ment was to Miss Betty Kirkham, youngest sister of
his friend Robert Kirkham, one of the earliest of the
Oxford Methodists ; who, from the following letter,
would evidently have much liked him for a brother
in-law —
"Your most deserving, queer character, your
worthy personal accomplishments, your noble endow
ments of mind, your little and handsome person, and
your obliging and desirable conversation, have been
the pleasing subject of our discourse for some pleasant
hours. You have often been in the thoughts of
M. B." (Miss Betty), "which I have curiously
observed when with her alone, by inward smiles and
sighs and abrupt expressions concerning you. Shall
this suffice ? I caught her this morning in an humble
and devout posture on her knees. I am called to
read the Spectator to my sister Capoon. I long for
the time when you are to supply my father's absence.
Keep your counsel, and burn this M'hen perused.
You shall have my reasons in the next. I must

234 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
conclude, and subscribe myself your most affectionate
friend — and brother I wish I must write —
"Robert Kirkham."
It appears that for over three years Wesley kept
up a correspondence with this young lady ; and his
sister Martha, who seems to have known of his
attachment, excuses him for not writing by telling
him —
" When I knew that you were just returned from
Worcestershire, where, I suppose, you saw your
Varanese" (Betty Kirkham), "I then ceased to
wonder at your silence ; for the sight of such a
woman, so known, so loved, might well make you
forget me. I really have myself a vast respect for
her, as I must necessarily have for one that is so
dear to you."
But in the year 1731 this love-affair came to an
end, probably owing to her marriage with a Mr.
Wilson ; and in the early summer of this year — during
probably their last meeting — he seems to have enjoyed
a time of almost uninterrupted conversation with her.
As has been remarked, he speaks of this period with
a lover's fervour — " ' On this spot she sat.' ' Along
this path she walked.' ' Here she showed that lovely
instance of condescension which, although extremely
obvious, could not but be equally pleasing, and gave

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 235
a new degree of beauty to the charming arbour, the
meadows, and Horrel itself.' "
About five years afterwards, in 1736, Wesley, soon
after his arrival in Georgia, formed another attach
ment with Miss Sophia Hopkey, a young lady of
considerable personal attractions, and of refined and
intellectual manners. They soon became great friends,
and, as time went on, " Miss Sophy," as he called her,
took every opportunity of being in his company ;
even nursing him during a short illness. In order
also to please him, she laid aside all gaudy attire,
which he disliked, and dressed in white henceforth.
Such attention had the desired effect, and in
December 1736, we find Wesley advising her to sup
earlier, and not immediately before she went to bed.
" She did so," he writes, " and on this little circum
stance what an inconceivable train of circumstances
depend ! Not only all the colour of my remaining
life for her, but perhaps all my happiness too, in
time and in eternity."
But, much as he thought he liked Miss Sophy, he
could not make up his mind to marry her, and after
laying the matter before the elders of the Moravian
Church, they replied, " We advise you to proceed no
further in this business," whereupon Wesley said,
"The will of the Lord be done."
Miss Sophy soon got over her disappointment, for

236 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
becoming engaged to a Mr. Williamson, on March 8 th,
she married him four days later, an event which
Wesley then enters in his diary —
" Saturday, March 12th. God being very merciful
to me, my friend performed what I could not."
It was well, as events turned out, that he did not
marry her, for she proved herself a very different
person from what he had imagined, and caused him
a good deal of annoyance by her vindictive conduct.1
Wesley's next important love-affair was with Grace
Murray, a young widow, thirty-two years old, whose
husband, a sailor, had been drowned at sea in the
year 1742. On proposing marriage to her in August
1748, she answered, " This is too great a blessing for
me ; I can't tell how to believe it. This is all I could
have wished for under heaven." She now became
his constant companion, and travelling with him in
his evangelistic work, was almost his right hand.
But it appears Grace had another love, named
John Bennet, whom, much as she loved Wesley, she
could not decide to give up ; one day telling Wesley,
" I love you a thousand times better than I ever loved
John Bennet in life. But I'm afraid if I don't marry
him, he'll run mad."
On the other hand, poor Wesley was equally
devoted, remarking that she was "indefatigably
1 See Telford's Life of John Wesley, pp. 88—91.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 237
patient, and inexpressibly tender ; quick, cleanly, and
skilful ; of an engaging behaviour, and of a mild,
sprightly, cheerful, and yet serious temper ; while,
lastly, her gifts for usefulness were such as he had
not seen equalled."
This period of indecision soon came to a close by
Grace's marriage with Bennet ; which was doubtless
the saddest disappointment in Wesley's life. Writing
to Mr. Thomas Bigg of Newcastle, from Leeds, he
says —
" Since I M^as six years old I never met with such
a severe trial as for some days past. For ten years
God has been preparing a fellow-labourer for me by
a wonderful train of providences. Last year I was
convinced of it ; therefore I delayed not, but, as I
thought, made all sure beyond a danger of disappoint
ment. But we were soon after torn asunder by a
whirlwind. In a few months the storm was over ;
I then used more precaution than before, and fondly
told myself that the day of evil would return no
more. But it too soon returned. The waves rose
again since I came out of London. I fasted and
prayed, and strove all I could ; but the sons of
Zeruiah were too hard for me. The whole world
fought against me, but above all my own familiar
friend. Then was the word fulfilled, 'Son of man,
behold, I take from thee the desire of thine eyes at

238 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
a stroke ; yet shalt thou not lament, neither shall thy
tears run down.'
" The fatal irrevocable stroke was struck on
Tuesday last. Yesterday I saw my friend (that Mras),
and him to whom she is sacrificed. I believe you
never saw such a scene. But ' why should a. living
man complain : a man for the punishment of his sins ' ?
" I am, yours affectionately, " John Wesley."
Had Wesley married Grace Murray — who by her
devotion to good works would have made him an
excellent helpmate — he would have been spared his
miserable marriage with Mrs. Vazeille, the widow of
a London merchant of Fenchurch Street. Possessed
of a violent temper, and of an absurdly jealous dis
position, it was not long before she made Wesley's
life wretchedly unhappy ; causing him by her sus
picious underhand conduct to despise her unworthy
motives. Not satisfied with opening his letters and
overhearing his conversation, she would even drive
a hundred miles to ascertain what he was doing,
and who was with him when he entered a town.
Wesley was not the man to tolerate such despicable
conduct ; but when he censured her she would leave
him, and by her malicious tongue cause ill reports
to be circulated about him.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 239
His life, which was far from an enviable one, was
terribly darkened by this infelicitous marriage ; and
how many righteous causes of complaint he had
against his wife's conduct may be gathered from the
following letter, dated 1759 —
" Dear Molly,
" I will tell you simply and plainly the
things which I dislike. If you remove them — well;
if not, I am but where I was. I dislike you showing
any one my letters and private papers without my
leave. This never did any good yet, either to you
or me, or any one. ... I dislike not having the
command of my own house, not being at liberty to
invite even my nearest relations so much as to drink
a dish of tea without disobliging you. I dislike the
being myself a prisoner in my own house ; the having
my chamber door watched continually, so that no
person can go in or out but such as have your good
leave. " I dislike the being but a prisoner at large even
when I go abroad, in so much as you are highly dis
gusted if I do not give you an account of every place
I go to, and every person with whom I converse. I
dislike the not being safe in my own house. My
house is not my castle.
" I cannot call even my study, even my bureau, my

240 LOVES and marriages of EMINENT PERSONS.
own. They are liable to be plundered every day. . . .
I dislike your treatment of my servants (though,
indeed, they are not properly mine) ; you do all that
in you lies to make their lives a burden to them.
You howl at, harass, rate them like dogs ; make them
afraid to speak to me. You treat them with such
haughtiness, sourness, surliness, ill-nature, as never
was known in any house of mine for near a dozen
years. You forget even good-breeding, and use such
coarse language as befits none but a fish-wife.
" I dislike your talking against me behind my
back, and that every day and almost every hour of
the day, making my faults the standing topic of your
conversation. I dislike your slandering me, laying
to my charge things which you know are false.
Such are (to go but a few days back), * that I beat
you,' which you told James Burges ; that I rode to
Kingswood with Sarah Ryan, which you told Sarah
Rigby ; and that I required you, when we were
first married, never to sit in my presence without
my leave. . . .
" I dislike your common custom of saying things
not true . . . and your extreme, immeasurable bitter
ness to all who endeavour to defend my character,
breaking out even into foul, unmannerly language,
such as ought not to defile a gentlewoman's lips, if
she did not believe one word of the Bible."

DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 241
He concludes the letter by urging her to rectify all
these abuses, and says, " These are the advices which
I now give you in the fear of God, and in tender love
to your soul. Nor can I give you a stronger proof
that I am your affectionate husband, "John Wesley."
But Wesley's appeal seems to have had little effect,
for at last she went off with part of his journals and
papers, which she would not restore. Her unnatural
conduct, which virtually bordered on insanity, lasted
for thirty years of Wesley's life, when her death — a
truly happy release for him — took place in 1781,
and thus alloMred the remainder of his days to be
spent in peace.

VOL. II. R

CHAPTER VI.
MARRIED BY CONSENT.
Earl of Berkeley — George Eliot— Charles James Fox — Marquis of
Wellesley — Lord Nelson — Charles Reade.
Like many men of fashion, before and after his time,
Frederick Augustus, fifth Earl of Berkeley, on May
16th, 1796, married his mistress. This lady was a
Mary Cole, daughter of a butcher at Gloucester, who
had already borne him four children, the eldest of
whom was William Fitzhardinge, better known as
Colonel Berkeley, from the position which he held
in the South Gloucester Militia. On the death of
Lord Berkeley, in the year 1810, William Fitz
hardinge, who sat in the Lower House under the
courtesy title of Viscount Dursley, claimed the title
and estates, as next in descent, and in accordance
with the testamentary arrangements of the deceased,
further basing his claim to the peerage on the alleged
private marriage of his parents, previous to that

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 243
which was generally acknowledged. The petition
was referred by the Prince Regent to the House of
Lords, and after a long and careful inquiry, it was
unanimously agreed that the petitioner had failed to
substantiate his claim.1 Accordingly, the inheritance
of the family distinction was confirmed to Thomas
Moreton Fitzhardinge, the fifth son actually, but the
first after the marriage of 1796. But with a noble
magnanimity he refused to claim the earldom, on
the ground that he would thereby be acquiescing
in the decision of the Lords, which bastardized his
brothers, and cast a slur upon the fair fame of his
mother. It would seem that Colonel Berkeley was a man of
considerable personal attractions and mental powers.
He spoke French well, and Italian a little, and, in
addition to his agreeable manners in society, had a
great fund of conversation which always made his
company very amusing. It was his devotion to
the stage which brought him in contact with the
celebrated Maria Foote, on her visit to Cheltenham.
Offering his services on the occasion, the performance
attracted a very crowded audience, and the beautiful
and much-admired actress, grateful for his help, soon
became attached to him. Telling her that marriage
1 See My Life and Recollections, i. pp. 29 — 49. Hon. Grantley
F. Berkeley. 1865.
R 2

244 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
with an actress was out of the question just when
he was petitioning the Crown to grant him the
dormant peerage, he prevailed upon his charmer to
live under his protection. For five years she made
her home with him ; when, finding that he had no
intention of fulfilling his promise, she broke off all
connection with him, his word being as unreliable as
his intentions were dishonourable. Ultimately, in the
year 1831, she was married to one of the butterflies
of fashion, Charles Stanhope, Viscount Petersham,
who by the recent death of his father had succeeded
to the Earldom of Harrington. His marriage with
an actress, whose past life had not been what it
should be, was the gossip of the day; the fair
duchess, whose life now was irreproachable, being
cruelly ostracized by the aristocracy because she had
fallen, and that through one of their own class.
That George Eliot was ever brought into close
relations with Mr. Lewes wTas due to Mr. Herbert
Spencer, who took him to call on her in the autumn
of the year 1851. The acquaintance thus formed
soon ripened into the warmest friendship, and when
writing to Miss Sara Hennell on 28th March, 1853,
she says —
"We had a pleasant evening last Wednesday.
Lewes, as always, genial and amusing. He has quite
won my liking, in spite of myself."

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 245
A little later, in a letter to her friend Mrs. Bray,
16th April, she further alludes to him —
" People are very good to me, Mr. Lewes espe
cially is kind and attentive, and has quite won my
regard, after having had a good deal of my vitupera
tion. Like a few other people in the world, he is
better than he seems. A man of heart and conscience
wearing a mask of flippancy."
A year hence, her relations with him had assumed
a very different aspect, for from her correspondence
it is evident that they had become everything to each
other. Writing to Mrs. Bray, April 18th, 1854, she
tells her that —
" Poor Lewes is ill, and is ordered not to put pen
to paper for a month ; so I have something to do
for him in addition to my own work, which is rather
pressing. He is gone to Arthur Helps, in Hampshire,
for ten days, and I really hope the total cessation
from work, in obedience to a peremptory order, will
end in making him better than he has been for
the last year. No opera and no fun for me for
the next month. Happily I shall have no time to
regret it."
At the end of the next three months, the following
note, dated 20th July, announces the most important
event in her life — her union with George Henry
Lewes —

246 loves and marriages of eminent persons.
" Dear Friends,
" I have only time to say good-bye, and God
bless you. Poste Restante, Weimar, for the next six
weeks, and afterwards Berlin. Ever your loving and
grateful " Marian."
At the time this decisive step caused some little
astonishment among her friends and admirers. But,
as Mr. J. W. Cross has kindly remarked,1 " in forming
a judgment on so momentous a question, it is above
all things necessary to understand what was actually
undertaken — what was actually achieved — and in my
opinion, this can be best arrived at, not from outside
statement or arguments,, but by consideration of the
true tenor of the life " which followed, in the develop
ment of which Mr. Lewes's true character, as well as
that of George Eliot, unfolded itself. At the same
time, Mr. Cross quotes a valuable and interesting
letter, addressed to Mrs. Bray, dated September
1855, fourteen months after the event, in which
George Eliot defends her line of conduct —
" If there is any one action or relation in my life,"
she writes, " which is and always has been profoundly
serious, it is my relation to Mr. Lewes."
In order to allay any prejudice her friends may
1 George Eliot's Life, as related in her Letters and Journals,
i. 326.

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 247
have had against her mode of life, she argues the
possibility for two persons to have different opinions
on momentous subjects with equal sincerity, with an
equal earnest conviction that their respective opinions
are alone the truly moral ones. " If we differ on the
subject of marriage laws," she says, "I at least can
believe of you that you cleave to what you believe
to be good ; and I don't know of anything in the
nature of your views that should prevent you
believing the same of me." Although she admits
the difficulty of making her friend see matters in
the same light as herself, she adds — " One thing I
can tell you in few words — lightly and easily broken
ties are what I neither desire theoretically, nor could
live for practically. Women who are satisfied with
ties do not act as I have done. That any unworldly,
unsuperstitious person who is sufficiently acquainted
with the realities of life can pronounce my relation
to Mr. Lewes immoral, I can only understand by
remembering how subtle and complex are the
influences that mould opinion.
"From the majority of persons of course we never
looked for anything but condemnation. We are
leading no life of self-indulgence, except indeed that,
being happy in each other, we find everything easy. . .
I should not care to vindicate myself if I did not love
you, and desire to reheve you of the pain which you

248 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
say these conclusions have given you. ... I should
like never to write about myself again ; it is not
healthy to dwell on one's own feelings and conduct,
but only try and live more faithfully and lovingly
every fresh day."
As she had anticipated, her union with George
Henry Lewes brought untold happiness ; their literary
tastes and similarity of ideas promoting a harmony
between them which was the guarantee of true
domestic peace and joy. But his death, on 28th
November, 1878, brought her intense sorrow, and
for many days she saw only a very few persons she
was obliged to receive on business. The only entry
in her diary on the 1st January, 1879, is, "Here I
and sorrow sit."
Writing to Madame Bodichon, on January 7th, she
touchingly says — " I bless you for all your goodness
to me, but I am a bruised creature, and shrink even
from the tenderest touch." And in a letter to Mrs.
Burne Jones, dated 4th February, she writes — " The
world's winter is going, I hope, but my everlasting
winter has set in. You know that, and will be patient
with me."
But as time went on, George Eliot began to see
her old friends again, although her life continued
to be one of heart-loneliness. "Accustomed as she
had been for so many years to solitude d deux, the

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 249
want of close companionship continued to be very
bitterly felt." It was when in this depressed con
dition that the society of her friend, Mr. J. W. Cross,
became a source of solace and comfort to her, for,
as he says, " she was in the habit of going with
me frequently to the National Gallery and to other
exhibitions of pictures, to the British Museum sculp
tures, and to South Kensington. This constant associ
ation engrossed me completely, and was a new interest
to her. A bond of mutual dependence had been
formed between us.
" On the 28th March she came cIomoi to Weybridge
and stayed till the 30th, and on the 9th April it was
finally decided that our marriage should take place as
soon and as privately as might be found practicable."
It was fortunate, too, that in Mr. Cross's sister
George Eliot found one whom she could love and
trust, and writing to her on the 13th April, 1880,
she says —
" You can hardly think how sweet the name sister
is to me, that I have not been called by for so many,
many years. Without your tenderness I do not
believe it would have been possible for me to accept
this wonderful renewal of my life. Nothing less than
the prospect of being loved and welcomed by you all
could have sustained me. But now I cherish the
thought that the family life will be the richer, and

250 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
not the poorer, through your brother's great gift
of love to me."
They were married on May 6th, at St. George's,
Hanover Square; but on the 22nd December the
same year, her sudden and unexpected death hap
pened, and, as Mr. Cross feelingly says, " her spirit
joined that choir invisible, ' whose music is the
gladness of the world.' "
However harsh the world's verdict may have been
upon the great statesman, Charles James Fox, in his
domestic affairs, there can be no doubt that he
behaved to women in the most gallant and chivalrous
manner. According to his biographer, Sir George
Trevelyan,1 his chief aim was " to treat women as
beings who stood on the same intellectual table-land
as himself; to give them the very best of his thought
and his knowledge as well as of his humour and his
eloquence ; to invite and weigh their advice in seasons
of difficulty ; and, if ever they urged him to steps
which his judgment or his conscience disapproved,
not to elude them with half-contemptuous banter,
but to convince them by plain-spoken and eerious
remonstrance." His chivalry, too, was not confined to the great
and fortunate ; for whenever a woman — rich or poor,
blameless or erring— M'as in trouble, she was always
1 Early History of Charles James Fox, 1881, p. 446.

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 251
sure of a champion in him. If, in his early life,
he was no rigid moralist, he was involved in no
overt scandal, and did not — by breaking up another
man's home — add a paragraph to the chronicle of
sin and misery in which some of his relatives and
companions conspicuously figured. When once he
had a home of his own, "the world outside, with
its pleasures and ambitions, became to him an object
of indifference, and at last of repugnance."
Many are the charming allusions MTe find to the
devotion he had for the lady whom he acknowledged
as his wife, and who seems to have so exactly under
stood his temperament as oftentimes to anticipate
his very thoughts. Frequently, for instance, when
he returned home fretted "by injustice and worn
by turmoil," she would take down a volume of Don
Quixote or Gil Bias and read to him.
It is noteworthy, too, that his affection for her
was not of an ephemeral existence, for in 1797 he
addressed to her the following lines which he one
day composed as he was being brought home badly
wounded from the shooting field —
" Sense of pain and danger flies
From the looks of those dear eyes ;
Looks of kindness, looks of love,
That lift my mortal thoughts above.
While I view that heavenly face,
While I feel that dear embrace,

252 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
While I hear that soothing voice,
Though maimed or crippled, life's my choice.
Without these, all the Fates can give
Has nought to make me wish to live.
No ; could they foil the power of time,
And restore youth's boasted prime ;
And, to boot, fame, power, and wealth,
Undisturbed and certain health,
Without thee 'twould nought avail ;
The source of every joy would fail :
But loved by thee, by thee caressed,
In pain and sickness I am blest."
This lady was Elizabeth Armstead, a widow, who
for some time had resided in his house at St.
Anne's Hill, and whom after a lapse of ten years
he acknoM'ledged as his wife. It had been rumoured
in 1788, however, that he was about to marry the
rich heiress, Miss Pulteney — afterwards Countess
of Bath.
" The marriage of Fox with Miss Pulteney," writes
Sir William Young, " is something more than common
talk. At the Duke of York's ball, he sat three hours
in a corner with her; attends her weekly to Ranelagh;
and is a perfect Philander." Again, Storer writes —
" What do you think of Mr. Fox going to be
married — and to Miss Pulteney ? " But gossip was
wrong, and Fox's devotion to the lady whom he had
at last made his wife we have no reason to doubt.
Throughout his life he ever displayed the same
tender regard for her. and she was equally proud of

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 253
his unselfish love, ever trying in a thousand little
ways to requite it. And when the end came, his
dying anxiety was for her, saddened with the melan
choly thought that she would be left alone — solitary
and friendless.
At last, as the evening advanced, and sinking
nature announced that his departure was near, he
looked again and again, with those eyes that were
fast growing dim, on Mrs. Fox, and tried to cast his
last sunshine into her soul by his farewell words,
" I die happy."
And so passed away one of our most gifted states
men, and whatever his early faults, it must be
acknowledged that "no man ever devoted such powers
of pleasing to the single end " of making a woman
happy. If, too, any further evidence were necessary
of the high estimation in which he was held by ladies,
we might notice the devotion of the Duchess of
Devonshire, allusions to which are scattered through
her correspondence. Respecting her affectionate
regard for him, it was eventually elevated, to quote
Sir George Trevelyan's words, "into a devotion
honourable to herself and to him." Thus, writing on
August 14th, 1777, she says —
"We returned to Chatsworth this morning, Mr.
Fox came in the evening from town — Charles Fox
d I' ordinaire. I have always thought that his great

254 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
merit is in his amazing quickness in seizing any
subject. His conversation is like a brilliant player
at billiards; the strokes follow one after another,
piff! paff!"
In a letter to Lord Huntingdon, dated Jan. 23rd,
1806, she tells him —
" The more you know of Mr. Fox's character, the
more you will admire the great features of his mind ;
the vast comprehension that takes in any subject,
united to a candour and benevolence that renders
him as amiable as he is great."
Her death seems to have been a great shock to Fox,
a pathetic allusion to which his private secretary, Mr.
Trotter, makes when describing the statesman's
illness —
" I continued to read aloud every night, and as he
occasionally dropt asleep, I was then left to the awful
meditations incident to such a situation ; no person
was awake besides myself, the lofty rooms and hall
of Chiswick House were silent, and the world , re
posed. In one of these melancholy pauses I walked
about for a few minutes, and found myself involun
tarily and accidentally in the late Duchess of Devon
shire's dressing-room — everything as that amiable and
accomplished lady had left it. The music-book still
open ; the books not restored to their places, a chair
as if she had but just left it, and every mark of a

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 255
recent inhabitant in this elegant apartment. Never
had I experienced so strong a sensation of the tran
sitory nature of life, of the vanity of a fleeting world !
I stood, scarce breathing — heard nothing — listened ;
death and disease in all their terrific forms marshalled
themselves before me — the tomb yawned — and oh,
God ! what a pang was it, that it was opening for
him whom I had hoped to see enjoying so many
happy years, and declining in the fulness of his glory
into the vale of years. Scarcely knowing how I left
the dressing-room, I returned — all was still, Mr. Fox
slept quietly."
Like Fox, the Marquess of Wellesley married the
lady with whom he had previously lived — a French
lady, Mademoiselle Hyacinthe Gabrielle Roland, who
had already borne him seven children. There was
no attempt at privacy, and the ceremony, which took
place at St. George's, Hanover Square, was attended
by several of his political friends. On her death, in
1816, he married a widow — a Mrs. Patterson, an
American by birth, daughter of Mr. Caton of Balti
more, and granddaughter of the celebrated American
patriot, Carrol of Carrolstown, who signed the De
claration of Independence. The lady being a Catholic,
the ceremony was twofold — the Primate of Ireland
officiating at one solemnization, and the Catholic
Archbishop at the other.

256 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
According to all reports, she was "a beautiful
woman of most fascinating address, capable of fixing
the volatile affections of an adorer and husband of
sixty-five, which was Lord Wellesley's age when he
married her. On the fly-leaf of a copy of his poems,
which he presented to her when qualified to speak
from experience, he wrote (from Dryden's Fables) —
" All of a tenour was their after life,
No day discolour' d with domestic strife,
No jealousy, but mutual truth believed,
Secure repose and kindness undeceived."
The love of Lord Nelson for Lady Hamilton is a
well-worn tale, and one upon which much has been
written. Of his deep devotion to her there can be
no doubt, for having fallen in love at first sight, he
loved her to the end ; his last and oft-quoted words
being, "Take care of Lady Hamilton. I leave her
and my daughter to my country."
From all accounts Lady Hamilton appears to have
been a charming woman ; and from Southey we learn
that her personal attractions were almost unequalled,
her powers of mind having been no less fascinating
than the beauty of her person. Romney much
admired her, and painted her in many of his pictures
as a Magdalen and a Bacchante indifferently ; while
Sir William Hamilton, to whom she was married in
1791, speaking of her sweet and amiable disposition.

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 257
declared that she had " never offended him her M'hole
life long"; and M'ith almost his last breath he com
mended his "incomparable Emma" to the care of
his " dear Nelson," who did not fail to comply with
this dying bequest. An extract from one of his
letters, Aug. 26th, 1803, shows how intensely
enamoured of her he was at this time —
" I only desire, my dearest Emma, that you will
always believe that Nelson's your oM'n. Nelson's1
Alpha and Omega is Emma ! I cannot alter — my
affection and love is beyond even this world ; nothing
can shake it but yourself, and that I will not allow
myself to think for a moment is possible. I feel
that you are the real friend of my bosom, and dearer
to me than life ; and that I am the same to you."
But, much as Nelson admired and loved Lady
Hamilton, the country at his death would not acknow
ledge her, and few sadder stories are told than that
which records the closing events of her life. Having
lost the protection and pecuniary help of the great
naval commander, she became embarrassed by debts,
and was imprisoned with her daughter in the Queen's
Bench prison, from which she M'as released through
the private generosity of a generous alderman, who
sent her to Calais; where, in the year 1815, she died,
in a state of wretched poverty — uncared for and
forgotten. VOL. II. s

258 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
A characteristic letter of this remarkable woman
was communicated to Notes and Queries, April 18th,
1861. Mrs. Burt, to whom the letter is addressed,
M'as well acquainted with her, when as Emma Lyons
she was a bare-footed girl residing at Hawarden, and
gaining a livelihood by driving a donkey, laden with
coals and sand for sale. Mrs. Burt, having occasion
to come to London, brought Emma with her at the
request of Mrs. Lyons, then occupying some situation
in the household of Sir W. Hamilton. When, in the
course of time, she became Lady Hamilton, she occa
sionally wrote to her old friend, and the following
letter tells its own tale —
" Caserta, near Naples, Dec. 28th, 1792.
"My dear Mrs. Burt,
" I Receved your very kind Letter this
morning, and am surprised to hear my poor dear grand
mother can be in M'ant, as I left her thirty pound when
I left england, besides tea, sugar, and several things, and
it is now five weeks since I wrote to a friend of ours,
and endeed a relation of my husbands to send twenty
pound more so that my Grandmother must have had
it on christmas day, you may be sure I should never
neglect that dear, tender parent who I have the
greatest obligations to, and she must have been cheated
or she never coud be in want, but you did very Right

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 259
my dearest friend to send her the four Guines which
I will send you with enterest and a thousand thanks
endeed, I Love you dearly my dear Mrs. Burt and I
think with pleasure on those happy days I have passed
in your Company, I onely wait for an answer from our
friend with the account of my grandmothers having
Receved her twenty pounds and I will then send
you an order on him for your money, and I send a
piece of Silk to make you a Gown we send it in the
ship Captain newman, who sails for england this
month, but my next Letter I will send you a bill of
Loading. I wrote you a Long Letter Last march, but
I am afraid you never got it, which I am sorry for as
there was a Long account of my reception at the Court
of Naples, endeed the Queen has been so Kind to me
I cannot express to you she as often invited me
to the Court, and her Magesty and nobility treats me
with the most kind and affectionate regard. I am
the happiest woman in the world, my husband is
the best and most tender of husbands and treats
me and my mother with such goodness and tender
ness ; endeed I love him dearly, if I could have my
dear grandmother with me, how happy I shoud be ;
but gods will be done, she shall never want and if
she shoud wish for anything over above what I have
sent her Let her have it and I will repay you with
entrest and thanks, you see my dear Mrs. Burt, in a
S 2

260 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
year and tM'o months she will have had fifty pounds
therefore I have nothing to Lay to my charge, I
write to Mrs. Thomas, who Lives on the spot, and who,
I hope, will see she is kindly used, I enclose this in a
friends Letter to save you the postage which is very
dear ... Sir William is now on a shooting party
with the King, the Queen is at Caserta, and our family
is now there we onely come to naples for a few days.
I am now at Caserta ; we have a good many english
with us the duchess of ancaster Lord and Lady
cholmondly, Lady plymouth, Lady webster, Lady
Forbes, &c. &c. ; they all dined with me yesterday.
I expect Sir William home to-night. God bless you,
my dear Mrs. Burt, and thank you for all your good
ness. Write soon, and
" Believe me your ever true and affectionate friend,
" Emma Hamilton."
It is to the credit of Lady Hamilton, that in her
prosperity she was neither ashamed of her origin
nor unmindful of her friends.
Charles Reade appears to have been in very low
waters, when his acquaintance began with Mrs. Sey
mour, " the one lady whom in the best days of his
manhood he idealized, and never forgot even in his
dying moments." The first time he saw her M'as at
the Haymarket when she was taking the lead, and so

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 261
unbounded was his admiration of her powers as an
actress, that he went back to his chambers and
addressed a letter to her. At this time, we are told,
she " was well-looking off the stage, and could make
up pretty, though her figure had become matronly."
Having in his earlier years had a slight tendency
to deafness, Mrs. Seymour's clear ringing voice was
an additional charm to Charles Reade. In short, he
was thoroughly delighted with the actress, and was
flattered by her promising to give him an interview,
that he might read a passage from a play he had
commenced. It was with diffidence, we read in his
Memoir, that he approached her, having been " snubbed
all along the line by people of her craft, including
Buckstone, Webster, and the rest of the theatrical
set." But she listened, and remarked when he had
concluded, " Yes, that's good ! That's plotting. But
why don't you write novels ? "
The visit over, he was disappointed. Mrs. Seymour,
too, knew as much. A glance at the pale face of
the tall man, who barely touched the tip of her
fingers as he left the room, told her that he was
disappointed. She felt sorry. " Hard up, I suppose,"
she muttered, " like the rest of them. Wanted me to
buy his play for an old song, no doubt — but of course
that's absurd. Still, I don't like to see a fellow of
his sort down on his luck, and I'll tell him as much."

262 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Although not in love with Charles Reade, she
could feel as a friend, and express her sympathy at
his trouble. Acccordingly she wrote to him to the
effect that while she could not make him an offer for
his play, she begged he would accept the loan of five
pounds. She was mistaken — it was not money he
wanted so much as kindness and sympathy.
Without delay he called on her with the bank-note
in his hand, and on returning it to her, said in words
which bespoke his emotion, " That is not what I need.
But you have unintentionally supplied it." At the
close of the interview that followed, " each had learnt
in a moment to respect the other, and a friendship
then commenced which was from the outset considered
as sacred." But, added Mr. Compton Reade, "the
friendship between these two was Platonic," and
adds that " if Charles Reade's partnership with a
practical woman of the world was of the nature of a
morganatic marriage, their lives were a brazen fraud."
Without entering into their relations to one another,
one thing very certain is, that Mrs. Seymour not
merely enabled her eccentric admirer to have a com
fortable home,1 but " was the architect of his fortune,
if not of his reputation." She helped him to find a
market for his work as a playwright, and encouraged
him to write as many novels as were necessary to
i Athenceum, 1887. Part I. p. 504.

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 263
keep the establishment going, acting in every way,
small as well as great, as his best counsellor and
assistant. It is not surprising that he became
devotedly attached to such a woman, especially as she
was everything to him, and felt intensely her death.
It was a terrible blow.
" I have lost," he writes, " the one creature who
thought more of my interest, wealth, and happiness
than her own. A poor old man of sixty-five ! unable
to live alone in the house, where I once was so happy
M'ith her, and unable to find a companion I could
endure in her home, I have for a long time slept at
my brother's house, and only visited my own house
for three or four times every day. . . . This day I have
mustered up resolution to sleep here (at Albert Gate).
I am sitting in the studio, a large room, silent as the
grave, though in the heart of London. The great
and ample fire-place she planned to heat this cold north
room does its work nobly ; but, ah me ! ah me ! her
seat by that fire-place is empty — empty for ever ! "
He realized that his main support had gone. He
was now wretchedly helpless, and the following extract
from a letter dated March 16th, 1880, published in
his Memoirs, is one of those harrowing and distressing
expressions of agonizing anguish which the final
separation produces in so many a heart —
" Alone in the world this six months, after pining

264 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
to a skeleton for the loss of my darling, and two
or three ineffectual attempts to live in the house
where she made me happy. My heart is like lead.
I no longer ignore God as I used. On the contrary,
I pray hard, and give money to my poor people,
and try to be God's servant. But, oh, it is so
hard and impalpable, and the world so full of vanity
by comparison.
"... Ah, to think that for five-and-twenty years
I M'as blessed with Laura Seymour, and that now for
the rest of my pilgrimage she is quite, quite gone !
Not one look from her sweet eyes — not one smile !
Oh, my heart ! my heart ! I am wretched. I have
lost my love of the world."
To add to his sorrows, Charles Reade felt the
lack of Divine consolation, not having " acquired the
love of God." Further on in the same letter he
writes —
"My dogs, and the portrait of my lost darling —
they are all I have. Ah, would to God I could add
that I have my Saviour ! I believe He is here, and
pities me, but from want of faith I cannot feel His
presence. Oh, God, increase my faith ! "
In another of these sad extracts, he alludes to
one of his own personal traits of character, which his
partner seems to have persistently tried to improve.
He writes —

MARRIED BY CONSENT. 265
" Of late years I used to hang fire at any good
or useful thing until she helped and drove me. I
could not put my papers to rights on the table
without her help. I can't do it, now she's gone,
without help. I begin, but cannot effect it. It
is the same in the things of God. I wish in my
weak way to serve Him, and do good to His people.
But I hang fire." He felt the loss of the guiding
hand which had directed his daily life ; and without
such influence he had not the moral strength nor
always the inclination to act for his own advancement
and good.

CHAPTER VII.
UNMARRIED.
Jeremy Bentham — Bishop Butler — Hon. Henry Cavendish —
Theodore Hook — David Hume — Goldsmith — John Keats — ¦
Charles Lamb— Lord Macaulay — William Pitt — Pope — George
Selwyn — Swift — Bishop Thirlwall — Thomson — Horace
Walpole.
Whilst many eminent men have abstained from
marriage, in order, like Hobbes, to devote themselves
completely to their life-work, others have remained
single from a variety of causes. Some men, for
instance, seem never to have known the true meaning
of love. Thus the story goes that Newton once went
a wooing, and began to smoke, and in his absence
of mind attempted to use the forefinger of the
lady as a tobacco- stopper ; an unfortunate act which
brought his courtship to an abrupt termination.
Others, again, having loved but in vain, remained
unmarried. Thus, it may be remembered, that in
early life Jeremy Bentham formed an attachment

UNMARRIED. 267
which was destined to sadden his future life. Thrown,
when at Bowood, into daily contact with ladies whose
charms were of a most attractive and fascinating kind,
he lost his heart. But the love was all on his side ;
his offer of marriage was rejected, and in spite of
his persistent addresses the lady refused him. Time,
however, could not efface the impression which this
early love romance had made upon him, and at sixty,
when he met the lady again, he renewed — but to no
purpose — his offer of marriage. Writing to announce
her decision to him, she says —
"You do us but justice in believing that the
renewal of friendly intercourse, after the lapse of
so many years, afforded us the sincerest pleasure,
so great a pleasure indeed, that I am afraid the
wish for its continuance has misled our judgments,
and caused a pang that I would have given the
world to spare you, for we can never meet but as
friends ; but this I did think, that, after a separation
of sixteen years, we might have done with comfort
and satisfaction to us both." She takes care to
remind him of the pain his disappointment had
caused her, and adds, " It is in your power, hoM'ever,
to make me easy, if you will instantly, without the
waste of a single day, return to those occupations
from which the world will hereafter derive benefit,
and yourself renown. I have enough to answer for

268 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
already in having interrupted your tranquillity (God
knows how unintentionally), let me not be guilty of
depriving mankind of your useful labours, of deadening
the energy of such a mind as yours."
Even when an old man he spoke of her with tears
in his eyes — the introduction of her name over
powering him with melancholy — and to the day
of his death he never ceased speaking of those
happy days at Bowood. When eighty years old
he addressed a touching farewell to her —
" I am alive, more than two months advanced in
my eightieth year — more lively than when you
presented me, in ceremony, with the flower in the
green lane. Since that day, not a single one has
passed (not to speak of nights) in which you have
not engrossed more of my thoughts than I could
have wished. In the inclosed scrap there are a
few lines which I think you will read with pleasure.
I have still the pianoforte harpsichord on which you
have played at Bowood .... and a ring with some of
my snow-white hair in it, and my profile, which every
body says is like — at my death you will have such
another, should you want it will be a sovereign to you."
But this letter drew forth no response.
Bishop Butler never married, but, in accordance
with his early resolution, devoted his life to the
furtherance of religious truth. In his third letter

UNMARRIED. 269
to Dr. Clarke, he says, " I design the search after
truth as the business of my life." And never,
perhaps, has there been a nobler example of one M'ho,
throughout his "whole course, more uniformly and
perseveringly adhered to the grand purpose of his
opening career. He was a man who made himself
universally beloved, and, as Surtees remarks in his
History of Durham, " During the short time that he
held the See of Durham he conciliated all hearts.
In advanced years, and on the episcopal throne, he
retained the same genuine modesty and native
sweetness of disposition which had distinguished him
in youth and in retirement. During his ministerial
performance of the sacred office, a divine animation
seemed to pervade his whole manner, and lighted up
his pale, wan countenance, already marked with the
progress of disease, like a torch glimmering in its
socket, yet bright and useful to the last."
The Hon. Henry Cavendish had a morbid antipathy
to women, his shyness amounting to a disease. It
disconcerted him even to see one of the other sex,
and to avoid meeting the female servants in his house
he ordered a back staircase to be built, and if he
accidentally encountered one of them in passing from
one room to another she was instantly dismissed.
" One evening," writes his biographer,1 " at the Royal
1 Life of Cavendish, p. 170. G. Wilson.

270 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Society, we observed a very pretty girl looking out
from an upper window on the opposite side of the
street, watching the philosophers at dinner. She
attracted notice, and one by one we got up and
mustered round the window to admire the fair one ;
Cavendish, who thought that we were looking at the
moon, hustled up to us in his odd way, and when he
saw the real object of our study, turned away M'ith
intense disgust, and blurted out ' Pshaw ' ! "
One brilliant morning Theodore Hook drove a
friend home from a party in his cab, between four
and five o'clock. " Ah," said he, as the cool air blew
freshly against his hot cheeks, "you may depend
upon it, my dear fellow, that there is nothing more
injurious to health than the night air. I was very
ill some months ago, and my doctor gave me par
ticular orders not to expose myself to it." " I hope,"
observed his friend, " you attended to them." " Oh
yes," was the reply, " strictly. I came up every day
to Crockford's or some other place to dinner, and I
made it a rule on no account to go home again till
about this hour in the morning." But this reckless
mode of living told on Hook's health, addedto which
continual mental worry, brain work carried on when
his system was exhausted, and anxiety for the future,
made him an old man when he ought still to have
been a young one. Worldly success and aristocratic

UNMARRIED. 271
petting had excited a baneful influence over him, for,
as Mr. Jeaffreson remarks, " not only did he become
careless of his honour, but he grew to be dead to the
promptings of affection. Though he knew his health
was failing, and that death was not to be driven
away by a cannonade of champagne corks, he made
no provision for the poor girl whose virtue he had
ruined, and of whose babes he M'as the father." 1
This was a sad condition for a gifted man of his
position ; but at last his constitution gave way, and
he died in the fifty-third year of his age, " deeply in
debt, and leaving five children, whose existence was
unsanctioned by law or religion, entirely unprovided
for. The sale of his books and other effects produced
£2500, M'hich was surrendered to the Crown as
the privileged creditor." A subscription, however,
was promptly set on foot for his illegitimate children
and their mother, which amounted to nearly £3000.
And yet, with all his faults, he was beloved by all
who knew him, and some have declared that if he had
not been the victim of an unfortunate love-affair his
habits might have shaped themselves very differently.
Whether this was really so or not, there is some
doubt ; but he possessed such a charm of grace and
manner, that at the Athenasum — his favourite club —
it is said the dinner fell off to the amount of £300 per
1 Novels and Novelists, ii. 133, 139.

272 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
annum, when his accustomed corner was no longer
filled by his cheery face.1
Whatever his personal defects, Hume was a great
favourite with the fair sex, and the attentions occa
sionally bestowed on him might have been envied
by the most attractive men of the period. In 1761
he commenced his acquaintance with Madame de
Boufflers, which afterwards ripened into a very warm
friendship. Early in life, and soon after her marriage,
this lady had been placed at the Court of the Duchess
of Orleans, but, quarrelling with that princess, she
came under the protection of the Prince of Conti.
On her visit to England she was well received by
the British aristocracy, exchanging visits with the
Marchioness of Hertford, the wife of the English
ambassador, and being even honoured by a laudatory
growl from Johnson.2 She was a clever woman, and
managed to gain an immense influence over Hume ;
his correspondence with her — which was published
some years ago — showing how high an opinion he
had of her merits; indeed, any prolonged absence
from her society caused him no small uneasiness,
and in one of his letters to her he says —
"Three months are elapsed since I left you; and
1 See Bates' Maclise Portrait Gallery, p. 235. Life and Remains
of Theodore Hook, by Rev. Dalton Barnham.
2 Burton's Life of Hume, ii. 90—102. 1846.

UNMARRIED. 273
it is impossible for me to assign a time when I can
hope to join you. I still return to my wish, that I
had never left Paris, and that I had kept out of the
reach of all other duties, except that which was so
sweet and agreeable to fulfil — the cultivating your
friendship and enjoying your society. Your obliging
expressions revive this regret in the strongest degree."
A few weeks later on he even suggests that they
should travel together and settle down in some
retired spot. " I have a project of accompanying you
to Lyons. Would to God it were possible for us to
take our flight thence into Italy, and from thence, if
you would, into Greece. A friend of mine who has
long been settled in Smyrna returns thither next
spring, and urges me to take the journey along with
him. What do you think of the project ? The idea
of it is not altogether extravagant. Might we not
settle in some Greek island, and breathe the air of
Homer, or Sappho, or Anacreon in tranquillity, and
great opulence ? " In spite of certain misunderstand
ings which caused, for a time, some friction between
them, this friendship between Hume and Madame
de Boufflers lasted till the close of the philosopher's
life, and not long before his death he addressed to
her an affectionate farewell.
Whether Goldsmith was ever in love is not known,
yet it is recorded of him that he was on one occasion
VOL. II. T

274 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
with difficulty dissuaded from marrying a needle
woman, probably intending it for a kindness.
At his friends the Dilkes', John Keats first met
Fanny Brawne, and within a week of their meeting
he wrote himself her vassal. And yet in a letter to
his friend Bailey, written five months before, he had
expressed his indifference to women's society, telling
him —
"Among women I have evil thoughts, malice,
spleen. 1 cannot speak, or be silent ; I am full of
suspicions, and therefore listen to nothing ; I am in
a hurry to be gone."
He also writes —
" I am certain I have not a right feeling towards
women. At this moment I am striving to be just
to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far
beneath my boyish imagination ? When I M'as a
school-boy I thought a fair woman a pure goddess ;
my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them
slept, though she knew it not. I have no right to
expect more than their reality. I thought them
ethereal above men. I find them perhaps equal —
great by comparison is very small."
Having once become acquainted with Fanny
Brawne, this prejudice was at an end, and in its
place a passion was kindled for her which had a fatal
influence over his future life. At first, it M'ould seem

UNMARRIED.' 275
the impression made by the young lady on Keats was
not altogether favourable, for he sends his brother
George a full account of her. He writes —
" Shall I give you Miss Brawne ? She is about
my height, with a fine style of countenance of the
lengthened sort. She wants sentiment in every
feature. She manages to make her hair look well ;
her nostrils are very fine, though a little painful ;
her mouth is bad and good ; her profile is better than
her full face, which is indeed, not ' full,' but pale and
thin, without shoM'ing any bone ; her shape is very
graceful, and so are her movements, her arms are
good, her hands bad-ish, her feet tolerable."
But on further acquaintance he is completely fasci
nated by her attractions, and finds himself powerless
to resist the influence of her charms. Soon his corre
spondence takes an active form, and whilst displaying
the most tender passion it is throughout tinged with
a sad melancholy. He frets if he thinks her manner
to him is not always as loving, tortures himself with
all kinds of deceptive fancies, and literally wears
himself out by brooding over imaginary little wrongs.
His failing health does not improve, and when it is
decided that he shall winter abroad, his state of mind
is one of terrible anguish. " The thought of leaving
Miss  is, beyond everything, horrible — the sense
of darkness coming over me — I eternally see her figure
T 2

276 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
eternally vanishing ; some of the phrases she was
in the habit of using during my last nursing at
Wentworth Place ring in my ears. Is there another
life ? Shall I awake and find all this a dream ?
There must be, we cannot be created for this sort of
suffering." Keats' engagement certainly did not increase his
happiness, and the dread that death would probably
crush all his hopes of marriage, intensified his misery.
" I can bear to die," he writes, " I cannot bear to
leave her. Oh, God ! God ! God ! Everything that
I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes
through me like a spear."
But it would seem that Fanny Brawne was not
possessed of very deep feeling ; for, as it has been
remarked, what can be said of a woman who, ten
years after Keats' death, could write of him to a
friend that " the kindest act would be to let him rest
for ever in the obscurity to which circumstances have
condemned him " ?
The tender and devoted conduct of poor Charles
Lamb to his sister was one of the most beautiful
traits of his character. As is well known, she stabbed
her mother in a fit of madness, and ever after was
hovering on the verge of insanity. Henceforth,
Lamb devoted himself to her with the most touching
watchfulness, sacrificing his brightest prospects on

UNMARRIED. 277
her behalf. From certain hints in his writings, it
would appear that he was very much in love at one
time of his life ; but after his sister's affecting disaster,
he persistently denied himself the pleasures of all
other female affections, and became her guardian, as
Mr. Smiles truly says, " with the heroism of a martyr."
Although fond of society, and devoted to children,
Lord Macaulay remained single ; and yet he was of
a lovable disposition, "loving to place his purse, his
influence, and his talents at the disposal of a friend ;
and any one whom he called by that name he judged
with indulgence, and trusted with a faith that would
endure almost any strain. He was true throughout
life to those who had once acquired his regard and
respect." Moultrie says of him —
" His heart was pure and simple as a child's
Unbreathed on by the world : in friendship warm,
Confiding, generous, constant ; and though now
He ranks among the great ones of the earth,
And hath achieved such glory as will last
To future generations ; he, I think,
Would sup on oysters with as right good-will,
In this poor home of mine, as e'er he did
On Petty Cury's classical first floor
Some twenty years ago."
Such was the man. While warmly attached also,
writes Sir George Trevelyan, to all his nearest re
lations, "Macaulay lived in the closest and most
frequent companionship with his sisters Hannah and

278 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
Margaret, younger than himself by ten and twelve
years respectively. His affection for these two, deep
and enduring as it was, had in it no element of
blindness or infatuation. Even in the privacy of a
diary, or the confidence of the most familiar corre
spondence, Macaulay, when writing about those whom
he loved, was never tempted to indulge in fond
exaggeration of their merits."
William Pitt remained single on the plea that
he was already married to his country. It was
generally supposed that he did not care about women,
Lady Hester Stanhope told her physician, " and knew
nothing about them, but they were very much
mistaken. Mrs. B  s, of Devonshire, when she
was Miss W  , was so pretty that Mr. Pitt drank
out of her shoe. Nobody understood shape and beauty
and dress better than he did. With a glance of his
eye he saw it all at once. But the world was ignorant
of much respecting him. Whoever thought there was
not a better judge of women in London than he ?
And not only of women as they present themselves,
to the eye, but that his knowledge was so critical
that he could analyze their features and persons
in a most masterly way. Not a defect, not a
blemish, escaped him ; he would detect a shoulder
too high, a limp in the gait, where nobody else
would have seen it, and his beauties were real natural

UNMARRIED. 279
beauties. In dress, too, his taste was equally refined.
I never shall forget when I had arranged the folds
and drapery of a beautiful dress I wore one evening
how he said to me, ' Really, Hester, you are bent on
conquest to-night; but M'ould it be too bold in me
if I M'ere to suggest that that particular fold' — and
he pointed to a triangular fall I had given to one
part — ' were looped up so ? ' and would you believe
it, it was exactly what was wanting to complete
the classical form of my dress. He was so in
everything." The story runs that Horace Walpole tried to get
up a match between Pitt and Necker's daughter,
afterwards the celebrated Madame de Stael, the father
of the latter offering to endow her with £14,000 a
year. But, tempting as the offer might seem to
the world, Pitt preferred to remain as he was. Was
he, too, likely to be persuaded into a marriage where
money rather than love was the inducement ? This
was, to say the least, improbable. His real love, it
has been stated, was Lady Eleanor Eden, a lady of
some beauty, and whom he gave up with a hard
struggle, ready to sacrifice his highest gratification
for what he regarded as his duty to the State.
On no point in his lifetime too was Pitt more
frequently assailed than on the strictness of his
morals. It formed, says Earl Stanhope, " the burthen

280 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
of the songs and squibs, and sometimes even of the
speeches made against him." As an undergraduate
at Cambridge, how cruel to repel the pretty flower-
girls, "who came fresh from the country, and who
only endeavoured to sell to the young gentlemen
their roses and lilies ! " so writes one satirist who
had taken Holy Orders. "As Chancellor of the
Exchequer, how unfair to lay a tax on all maid
servants, instead of flirting with two or three of
them, as every gentleman should ! So cried a whole
chorus in the House of Commons. Taunts like these
find a ready echo in the days of youth,
' When all our locks were like the raven's wing.'
But at another period they may be differently viewed."
It was observed by Lord Macaulay, as tending to
explain the abstinence of Pitt from loose amours,
that " his constitution was feeble ; he was very shy,
and he Mras very busy." It is true that each of
these three causes may have exerted an influence over
his life, but Earl Stanhope considers it clear, from
Pitt's last words to Bishop Tomlinson, that there
had been no indifference in him upon the subject.
Indeed, when, in his last hours, he was too weak to
say much, and told the bishop, " I have, as I fear
is the case with many others, neglected prayer too
much to allow me to hope that it can be very

UNMARRIED. 281
efficacious now," he alluded to the pureness of his
life, and rising in his bed, with clasped hands, ex
pressed a confident hope of the mercy of God through
the intercession of his Redeemer.
As Lord Stanhope remarks, " It is impossible that
any man could derive any consolation from the
innocency of his past life, unless there had been
in his youth self- control to exert, and temptation to
overcome." This mastery of self was characteristic
of his whole life, and Lord Macaulay speaks of " his
usual majestic self-possession." In short, his feelings
were ever under the dominion of his resolute will,
and "whether in the debates of the House of
Commons as their leader, or in the government of
the country as its chief, he showed a thorough
mastery over his own emotions, acting throughout,
not on impulse, but on principle."
With such principles he would have made a
husband whose goodness would have rendered any
woman happy; for his kindness, gentleness, and
thoughtful ness to all those who were any way
dependent on him formed a main feature of his
character. Thus, to his domestics, his indulgence
was indeed carried to a most faulty extreme, since
he did not even control their expenses or review
their accounts. To the poor families around him
he MTas ever ready to stretch forth his helping hand.

282 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
" Hearing," writes Lord Stanhope, " that there were
living at the village of Keston, near Hoi wood, two
persons who, or whose families, had been in the
employment of Pitt, I went over to see them,"
and the following are his notes of what they told
him — "August 21th, 1861.
" Russell, once assistant carter to Mr. Pitt, now aged
eighty-two, a hale and cheery old man: — 'Mr. Pitt
(God bless him !) was ever doing us some good thing.
If goodness would keep people alive, Mr. Pitt would
be alive now. ... He could ne'er abide to see any of
us poor folk stand with bare heads before him ;
when he saw, as he came, any one uncover, his word
was always, " Put on your hat, my friend." '
*J/, -St. 4L- «U.
TV" "W" w w
" Betty Elliott, whose father and uncle were wood
cutters of Mr. Pitt. As a child she heard a great
deal of his constant kindness to the poor. ' Surely
he was missed when he went ; he was a rare good
gentleman.' "
Once, her uncle being drawn for a soldier, and very
unwilling to serve, Mr. Pitt gave him money to
purchase his release. And the bailiff told him, " Mind,
you are not to go and thank master. He does not
want to be thanked. If you thank him too much,
he will never do anything else for you."

UNMARRIED. 283
Such records of his humanity, and kindness to
the poor, coincide with the innocency of his life, which
seems to have been one of the crowning joys of his
dying hours.
Pope's love affairs were somewhat amusing. He
fell in love with a young lady of the name of Withen-
burg, but her guardian, disapproving of the attach
ment, removed her to the Continent, intercepting all
communication. But the lady, despite Pope's dis
tortion and diminutiveness, apparently loved him;
for, cut off from all opportunity of seeing or hearing
from her lover, she killed herself. His attachment to
and correspondence with the Misses Blount are well
known, as also was his passion for Lady Wortley Mary
Montagu. This handsome and brilliant lady made
his acquaintance in the year 1815, but before long a
misunderstanding arose between them, ending in an
open quarrel, in which they indulged in vituperation
of a by no means complimentary kind. It has been
suggested that the quarrel originated in the fact that
Pope, forgetting Lady Montagu had a husband, made
love to her so seriously that, instead of repulsing him
in earnest, she was intensely amused, at which the
vanity of the poet was mortally wounded.
Then there was George Selwyn, who, in spite of his
passion for children, remained unmarried. Towards
the close of his life, some stir M'as caused by his

284 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
remarkable devotion for a certain mysterious child,
the " Mie Mie '' of the Selwyn correspondence, whom,
with the tardily obtained consent of his mother, he
adopted as his daughter, and brought up under his
roof. This child was Maria Fagniani, the recog
nized daughter of the Marquis and Marchioness of
Fagniani, and the future wife of the third Marquis of
Hertford. But, as is well known, numerous vague reports
were circulated respecting the questionable parentage
of Selwyn's adopted child. It was hinted that she
owed her parentage either to the Duke of Queensberry
or Selwyn himself ; a belief which was strengthened
by the former leaving her a fortune of £150,000,
besides other reversions, and the latter a sum of no
less than £33,000.
Swift's love affairs have always been a mystery, his
strange conduct towards Stella and Vanessa having
given rise to many curious conjectures. Throughout
life he exercised a peculiar fascination over women,
many of whom were, at one time or another, in more or
less intimate relations with him. Hence, it has been
often asked, why did he not marry ? This is a question
which will probably never be satisfactorily answered.
One lady to whom he was deeply attached was
Anne Long, a famous beauty of her day ; many
touching allusions to whom occur in his private

UNMARRIED. 285
papers, and especially one on her death, which un
happily occurred in retirement and poverty.
But the two devoted worshippers with whom his
name has long been linked, were Esther Johnson, or
Stella — a beautiful and clever woman — and Hester
Vanhomrigh, a young lady who, he tells us, to
feminine grace united masculine accomplishments.
Between these two favourites Swift bestowed the
warmest regard, although inconsistently he allowed
them to spoil their lives by hopes which were never to
be realized. It has been said that he did not understand
the meaning of love, but from what we know of his
tastes and habits this assertion is highly doubtful ;
and yet, when poor Vanessa makes no hesitation in
making known her feelings to him, and writes in the
most impassioned strain, he keeps her for weeks in
suspense before he writes, and then tells her " to fly
from the spleen instead of courting it, or to amuse
herself by reading diverting books." No wonder she
thought him changed, and wrote as follows —
"Put my passion under the utmost restraint ; send
me as distant from you as the earth will allow, yet
you cannot banish those charming ideas which will
stick by me while I have the use of memory. Nor
is the love I bear you only seated in my soul, for
there is not a single atom of my frame that is not
blended with it." On the other hand he assures her,

286 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
" Que jamais personne du monde a ete aimee, honor ee,
estimee, adoree par votre ami que vous." If this were
so, why did he allow her to speak of his " prodigious
neglect," and suffer her to undergo the terrible tension
caused by the uncertainty of his future conduct?
Indeed, to quote her own words, she beseeches him
not to allow her to "live a life like a languishing
death, which is the only life I can lead, if you have
lost any of your tenderness for me."
As an explanation of his conduct, it has been
suggested that Swift was secretly married to Stella
in 1716, but of this there is no proof. It may be that
prudence prompted him to be cautious, for he knew
that any collision between the two women would have
exposed him to an unpleasant ordeal, which he natur
ally was anxious to avoid. But, what Swift no doubt
dreaded happened ; for, according to Sheridan, in
1723 Vanessa wrote to Stella inquiring whether she
was Swift's wife. The latter answered in the affirma
tive, and sent the letter on to Swift, who in a fit of
anger went straightway to Vanessa, threw the fatal
document down on the table, and rode off. This was
Vanessa's death-blow, for she died soon afterwards, but
not before she had revoked a will made in favour of
Swift. In 1728 Swift had another shock in the death of
Stella, and how acutely he felt her illness may be

UNMARRIED. 287
gathered from his correspondence. He kept one
letter for an hour before opening it, for the idea of
her death took away all his desire of life. But the
dreaded hour came, and Swift was left alone — a
broken-down man. Why had he not married her?
This must always be a puzzle, although, as Mr. Leslie
Stephen has suggested, one reason may have been
that he had gradually become " almost a monomaniac
upon the question of money. His principle was that
by reducing his expenditure to the lowest possible
point, he secured his independence, and could then
make a generous use of the money. Marriage would
have meant poverty, probably dependence, and the
complete sacrifice of his ambition." But the fact of
his not marrying could not justify the cruel way in
which he trifled with the affections of two women to
whom marriage must have been the dearest thought
of their hearts.
Bishop Thirlwall remained single, and Thomson,
the poet of The Seasons, died unmarried. At one
period, however, of his life, towards the year 1743,
he had a great desire to change his single condition,
and courted the lady whom he has celebrated as
" Amanda," a Miss Young, of Gullyhill, Dumfriesshire.
But the poet's pecuniary condition was not considered
sufficiently established, and so Miss Young became
engaged to, and married, Vice-Admiral John Campbell.

288 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
It was in the drawing-room of his friend, Lady
Herries, that Horace Walpole first formed the ac
quaintance of those two fair and accomplished sisters,
Mary and Agnes Berry, with whose friendship and
fascinations the happiness and the weakness of his
closing years became so intimately woven. Their
father, it appears, spared no pains to make them
as accomplished as possible, and for two or three
years took them to France and Italy, so that, to quote
Walpole's letter to Lady Ossory, " they are returned
the best-informed and the most perfect creatures I
ever saw. They are exceedingly sensible, entirely
natural and unaffected, frank, and being qualified to
talk on any subject, nothing is so easy and agreeable
as their conversation. They are of pleasing figures ;
Mary, the eldest, sweet, M'ith fine dark eyes that are
very lively when she speaks, with a symmetry of
face that is the more interesting from being pale.
Agnes, the younger, has an agreeable, sensible
countenance, hardly to be called handsome, but
almost." Three years later on, Walpole writes to Lady Ossory
much in the same strain — "They are extraordinary
beings, and I am proud of my partiality for them,
and since the ridicule can only fall on me, and not on
them, I care not a straw for its being said that I am
in love with them ; people shall choose which ; it is

UNMARRIED. 289
as" much with both as either, and I am infinitely too
old to regard the que// dit-o/i." But there can be no
doubt that the elder sister Mas Walpole's favourite,
and, so long as her home was near his — either in
London or the neighbourhood of Twickenham — he
seemed , to have been quite happy ; but if, as
Mr. Jesse writes, " absent with her father in Italy,
if paying visits to friends in Yorkshire, or to other
places, we find him from time to time expressing
himself inconsolable during her absence, or else
anticipating her return M'ith something very much
resembling the impatient ardour of a youthful
lover." Happily for Walpole, the closing weeks of his life
were cheered by the affectionate and unwearying-
attention of these two charming lady friends, whose
society had been the chief solace of his declining
years. " When not immediately suffering from pain,"
writes Miss Mary Berry, " his mind was tranquil and
cheerful. He was still capable of being amused and of
taking some part in conversation, but during the last
weeks of his life his mind became subject to the cruel
hallucination of supposing himself neglected and
abandoned by the only persons to whom his memory
clung, and whom he always desired to see. In
vain they recalled to his recollection how recently
they had left him, and how short had been their
VOL. II. u

290 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
absence, but the same idea returned as soon as he
had lost sight of them." But at last, she tells us,
sinking under the exhaustion of weakness, nature
kindly obliterated all such ideas until he gradually
passed aM'ay.

THE END.

INDEX,

Aeernethy, i. 242—244
Abinger, Lord, ii. 45, 46
Abraham, Ellen, marries Richard
Bethell, i. 116
Albans, St., Duke of, i. 46
Alford, Dean, ii. 2, 3
Allen, Mrs. Stephen, wife of Dr.
Burney, i. 192
Andrews, Sarah, Fielding in love
with, ii. 220
Appreece, Mrs., i. 52
Armstead, Mrs., married to Charles
James Fox, ii. 253
Arne, Dr., ii. 228
Arnold, Dr., i. 3— 6
Atkins, Catherine, marries Mul
ready, i. 216—218
Baker, Kate, marries Charles
Lever, i. 327—329
Bannister, Mrs., i. 252
Barnard, Miss Sarah, married to
Faraday, i. 59—64 '
Barton, Anna, wife of Fred. Deni-
son Maurice, i. 165
Beuconefield, Lord, i. 7, 8
 Lady, i. 7
Beauclerk, Topham, ii. 149
Beckford, William, ii. 94, 95
Bentham, Jeremy, ii. 266—268
Berkeley, Earl of, ii. 242, 243
 Grantley, ii. 126
Berrel, Miss, marries Samuel
Lover, ii. 70
Berry, therMisses, ii. 289
Bessborough, Countess, ii. 32
Bethell, Richard, i. 116
Bewick, Thomas, i. 10 — 14
Bicknell, Mary, marries Constable,
ii. a

Blanchard, Laman, ii. 126
Blessington, Lady, ii. 95—100, 127
Bolingbroke, Frederick, 2nd Vis
count, ii. 148
 • Henry St. John, ii. 100
Boswell, J., i. 75, 266, 274
Boufflers, Madame de, ii. 273
Bowles, Caroline, wife of Southey,
ii. 91
Brawne, Fanny, engaged to Keats,
ii. 274
Broreton, Mrs., i. 249
Bridgewater, Duke of, ii. 211
Bright, John, i. 14—17
 Jolm Albert, i. 16
Brindley, James, ii. 3 — 5
Bristol, John, 3rd Earl of, i. 302—
303
Bronte, Charlotte, i. 18, 21
Buckle, H. T., ii. 214, 215
Bunbury, Sir Thomas Charles, i.
189
Bunvon, Sarah Frances, i. 38
Burke, Edmund, i. 21—23 ; ii. 29
Burleigh, Lord, i. 1
Burney, Dr. Charles, i. 191
 ' Miss, i. 50
Burns, Robert, i. 282—285
Burr, Margaret, i. 208
Butler, Bishop, ii. 268, 269
Byron, Lord, ii. 150—156, 191
Campbell, Lord Chancellor, i. 194
 199
Campbell, Thomas, i. 23—27
Canning, George, i. 49, 132
Cannon, Kitty, i. 306
Carev, WMiam, ii. 101—107
Carlyle, Thomas, ii. 107—114
Caroline, Lady Ponsonby, ii. 189
v a

292

INDEX.

Carpenter, Margaret, marries Sir
Walter Scott,' i. 94, 95
Cavendish, Hon. Henry, ii. 269,
270
Chambers, Mary, Kean marries, ii.
174—176
Charteris, Mary, married to J.
Sheridan Knowles, i. 100
Chatham, Lady, i. lO
Chatterton, T., i. 275—277
Chaworth, Mary Anne, Lord By
ron in love with, ii. 151
Chndleigh, Elizabeth, i. 302—305
Churchill, Charles, i. 296—306
Clairmont, Mrs., marries William
Godwin, i. 69
Clarke, Charlotte, ii. 22
Cobbett, Wm., ii. 5, 6
Cobden, Richard, i. 14, 15, 27—36
Colenso, Bishop, i. 36 — 39
Coleridge, Hartley, ii. 161
 Henry Nelson, i. 40
 Samuel Taylor, i. 39 ; ii.
159—164
Coleridge, Sarah, i. 39—44
Combe, George, i. 44
Constable, John, ii. 6, 7
Cooper, Sir Astley, i. 199—202
Cornwall, Barry, ii. 8
Cornwallis, Marquis, i. 203—206
Coutts, Thomas, i. 45 — 47
Coventry, Lady, ii. 213
Cowper, Earl. 'i. 176
— Lady Emily, i. 97—100
 William, ii. 216
Cox, David, i. 133—135
 Mrs. See Kean, ii. 177
Crabbe, George, ii. 46 — 50
Craddock, Charlotte, married to
Fielding, ii. 221
Crewe, Lord, i. 47
Croker, John Wilson, i. 49
Cross, J. W., ii. 246^-250
Crouch, Mrs., i. 250
Cunningham, Allan, ii. 50 — 53
Curchod, Mademoiselle, Gibbon in
love with, ii. 226
Dalmeny, Lord, i. 305—307
D'Arblay, Madame, i. 49, 192
 Monsieur, i. 50, 51
Darwin, Charles, i. 45 ; ii. 58
 Erasmus, ii. 53 — 58
Davy, Sir Humphry, 51 — 53

Dawson, Dr. Thomas, i. 246, 247
Denham, Miss Ann, marries Flax-
man, i. 177
De Quincey, i. 136 — 139
Derby, Lord, i. 206, 207
Devonshire, Beautiful Duchess of,
ii. 30—32
Dickens, Charles, i. 277—279 ; ii.
14,21,164—169 _
Disraeli, Benjamin, i. 6 — 10
Doddridge, Dr., ii. 217— 220
Draper, Eliza, Sterne in love with^
ii. 140
Duncannon, Lady, ii. 32
Dyke. Bessie, marries T. Moore,
i. 91
Eden, Lady Eleanor, ii. 279
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, i. 307
—314
Eldon, Lord, i. 317—322
Eliot, George, ii. 244
EUenborough, Lord, i. 53 — 50,
258
Elmy, Sarah, ii. 47
Elphinstone, Miss, second wife of
T. Sheridan Knowles, i. 104
Entwistle, Mrs., i. 45
Erskine, Henry, i. 57—59
Etty, William, i. 279—282
Exeter, Marquis of, i. 261
Fagniani, Maria, ii. 284
Faraday, i. 59—66
Fan-en, Elizabeth, i. 200, 207
Fawcett, Henry, i. 66 — 07
Fielding, Henry, ii. 220—226
Flaxman, i. 177
Flood, Cecilia, married to Dr.
Lardner, ii. 183
Foote, Maria, ii. 243
Formantel, Catherine, ii. 139
Forster, W. E., i. 140—144
 John,i. 277,278; ii. 127
Fox, Charles James, i. 47, 48, 206 ;
ii. 32, 250—255
Fox. Henry, afterwards Lord
Holland, i. 314—316
Francis, Sir Philip, i. 322—326
Fraser, Lydia Mackenzie, i. 226 —
229
Fricker, Edith, marries Southey,
ii. 85
Fullerton, Christina, i. 57, 58

ISDEX.

293

Gainsborough, Lady, i. 100
 Thomas, i. 207—210
Garrick, i. 192, 300
Gibbon, E., ii. 226, 227
Godwin, William, i. 68—72
 Mary, i. 70
Goldsmith, ii. 273, 274
Gough, Kitty, i. 306
Grafton, Duke of, ii. 169
Grammont, Comte de, ii. 97
Granville, Lord, remarks on Lady
Shaftesbury, i. 97
Grenfell, Miss, marries Charles
Kingsley, i. 162
Griffies, Jane, married to Wm.
Roscoe, ii. 26, 27
Grote, George, i. 211—214
Grove, Harriet, engaged to Shelley,
ii. 205
Guiccioli, Count, ii. 155
Hull, Mrs. S. C, ii. 126, 129
Hamilton, Sir William, i. 144—146
 Duchess of, ii. 21 1—213
 Lady, ii. 256—260
Hanmer, Lady, ii. 117
Hastings, Warren, i. 244—246
Hatherley, Loid, i. 71
Hatley, Susanna, marries Dr.
Wordsworth, i. 125
Haydon, i. 146—150
Hazlitt, William, ii. 170—174
Hemans, Mrs., ii. 114—117
Hervey, Hon. Mrs., ii. 117—119
Hill, Rev. Rowland, i. 71—74
Hindmarsh, Elizabeth, marries
George Stephenson, i. 237
Hogarth, Catherine, marries
Charles Dickens, ii. 164
Hogg, James, the Ettrick Shep
herd, ii. 15, 16
Holmes, Miss, marries Edward
Miall, i. 91
Hood, Thomas, i. 151—159
Hook, Dean, ii. 58—61
Hook, Theodore, ii. 270—272
Hooker, ii. 93
Hope, Rebekah, marries Samuel
Morley, ii. 79
Horner, Miss, marries Sir Charles
Lyel I, i. 82
Howard, Mary, marries Erasmus
Darwin, ii. 53
Howe, Admiral Lord, i. 257

Hugonin, Charlotte, wife of Sir R.
Murchison, i. 174
Hullah, John, i. 158—161
Hume, David, ii. 272, 273
Hunt, Leigh, ii. 16—17
Hutchinson, ii. 42, 43
Imhoff, Baron, i. 244, 245
Inchbald, Mrs.,i. 249; ii. 120—122
Irving, Edward, ii. 61—65, 107
Jameson, Mrs., i. 246—248
Jeffrey, Francis, ii. 107
Jerrold. Douglas, ii. 17 — 22
 Blanchard, ii. 18
Johnson, Esther, ii. 285
 Samuel, i. 74—76, 191 ;
ii. 185
" Junius,'' Letters of, i. 322
Kean, Edmund, ii. 174—178
Keats, John, ii. 274—276
Keble, John, ii. 22—24
Kemble, Fanny, i. 246
 John Philip, i. 249—253
 Sarah, ii. 65—69
Kingsley, Charles, i. 161 — 164
Kingston, Duchess of, i. 302, 303
Knowles, James Sheridan, i. 100
—104
Lafayette, M.. i. 50
Lamb, Charles, i. 152; ii. 164,
270, 277
Lamotte, Mary, marries Lord
Tenterden, ii. 81
Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, ii.
122—130
Landor, Walter Savage, ii. 178 —
183
Lansdowne, Lord, i. 92, 231
Lardner, Dr., ii. 183, 184
Lascelles, Miss, married to Smollett,
i. 106
Lawson, Miss, Maid of Honour to
Princess of Wales, i. 237
Lear, Edward, i. 119
Leatham, Miss Margaret Eliza
beth, i. 15, 16
Lee, Miss Harriet, i. 69
Leigh, Mrs., half-sister of Lord
Byron, ii. 153
Lennox, Caroline, marries Henry
Fox, i. 314

294

INDEX.

Lennox, Lady Sarah, i. 189 — 315
Lever, Charles, i. 327—329
Lewes, George Henry, ii. 244 —
247
Lewin, Harriet, married to George
Grote, i. 211—213
Lewis, William Wyndham, i. 7
Linley, Eliza, marries Sheridan, i.
329 ; ii. 196
Livingstone, David, i. 76—81
Lloyd, Olivia, i. 76
Lover, Samuel, ii. 70 — 72
Lowtlier, Miss, General Wolfe in
love with, i. 239, 240
Lumley, Elizabeth, marries Sterne,
ii, 137
Lunan, Mrs., marries Porson, i.
253
Luther, i. 1
Lyell, Sir Charles, i. 81, 82
Lyndliurst, Lord, i. 285—287
Lyttelton, Lord, ii. 184—189
Lytton, Lord, ii. 126, 128, 156—
159
Macaulay, Lord, i. 49 ; ii. 277
Macdaniel, Mary, marries Fielding,
ii. 225
Mackintosh, Sir James, ii. 24
 Catherine Anne, i. 83
Mackrabie, Miss, i. 322
Maclean, George, marries Miss
Landon, ii. 127
MacLehose, Mrs., i. 283
Macrendy, i. 214, 218
JMacri, Theodora, ii. 151
Maginn, Dr., ii. 120
Maun, Sir Horace, i. 303, 314
Mansell, Dean, i. 86, 87
Mansfield. Lord, ii. 227—230
Mirdyn, Mrs., ii. 154
Marshall, Cordelia, wife of Wm.
Whewell, i. 180
Marshall, Miss, marries Sir W.
Hamilton, i. 145
Martin, Elizabeth, married to
Edward Irving, ii. 03
Maurice, Fred Denison, i. 105 —
170
Maxwell, Sir William Stifling, ii.
202
Melbourne, Lord, i. 176 ; ii. 189,
195
Metealf, John, ii. 72, 73

Metcalfe, Lord Charles, i. 289,
290
Mia 1, Edward, i. 87—91
Milbanke, Miss, ii. 152
Mill, John Stuart, i. 170, 171
Miller, Hugh, i. 226—229
Moffat, Robert, ii. 73—79
 Mary, marries Livingstone,
i. 77
Montagu, Mrs. Basil, ii. 10
 Lady Wortley, ii. 224,
283
Montaigne, i. 1
Montefiore, Sir Moses, i. 172 —
174
Moor, Charlotte, marries Lord
Hatherley, i. 71
Moore, Thomas, i. 97
 George, i. 229, 230
Morley, Samuel, ii. 78—81
Mulready, ii. 195, 196
Murehisuii, Sir R., i. 174, 175
Murphy, Anna Brownwell, marries
Dr. Jameson, i. 247
Murray, Wm., afterwards Lord
Mansfield, ii. 227
Muskerry, Lord, i. 251
Nelson and Lady Hamilton, ii.
256—200
Newbury, Jack of, ii. 101
North, Christopher, i. 125
Norton, Hon. Mrs., ii. 196—203
Ogle, Miss, Sheridan marries, i.
332
Paley, Dr., i. 1
Palmerston, Lady, i. 97
 Lord, i. 170, 177
Parr, Dr., ii. 130, 131
Parsons, Nancy, ii. 169, 170
Patterson, Mrs., married the
Marquis of Wellesley, ii. 255
Pio-zi, Mrs., ii. 69
Pitt, Win., ii. 278—283
Pope, ii. 283
Porson, i. 253—255
Porter, Mrs., marries Dr. Johnson,
i. 74
Power, Margaret, afterwards Lady
Blessington, ii. 96
Prieslmai), Elizabeth, Miss, i. 14
Proctor, Bryan Waller, ii. 8, 9

INDEX.

295

Proctor, Adelaide Anne, ii. 14
Pybus, Miss, married to Sydney
Smith, i. 104
Queensberry, Duke of, ii. 284
Raeburn, Sir Henry, i. 210, 211
Ragg, Marv, married to David
Cox, i. 133
Ravensworth, Lord, ii. 169
Reade, Charles, ii. 262 — 265
Reid, Ann, marries Wm. Cobbett,
ii. 5
Revely, Mrs., i. 69
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, i. 177, 256
Richardson, Samuel, ii. 131 — 135
Rogers, Samuel, i. 55, 289—293
Romilly, Samuel, i. 230—235
Romney, George, i. 255 — 257
Roscoe, William, ii. 26 — 30
Rosebery, Earl of, i. 305
Sanderson, Miss Fanny, married
to Robert Stephenson, i. Ill
Sargent, Emily, marries Samuel
Wilberforce, ii. 37
Scott, Miss Joan, marries George
Canning, i. 132
Scott, Sir Gilbert, i. 178
Scott, Sir Walter, i. 46, 49, 93—
96 ; ii. 117
Scott, Sir William, afterwards
Lord Stowell, i. 258
Scurlock, Mary, i. 109
Selwyn, George, i. 191, 316 ; ii.
119, 283, 285
Shaftesbury, Lord, i. 78, 96—100
Shee, Sir George, i. 325
Shelley, i. 69 ; Ii. 203—209
Sheridan, i. 329—332 ; ii. 196
Siddons, Mrs., ii. 65—68
Simpson, Elizabeth, afterwards
Mrs. Inchbald, ii. 120—122
Simpson, Margaret, marries De
Quincey, i. 137
Sinclair, Matilda, i. 23
Skipper, Miss, marries Barry Corn
wall, ii. 10
Sleepe, Miss Esther, marries Dr.
Burney, i. 191
Sligo, Marquis of, i. 257
Smith, Charlotte, ii. 135 — 137
 • Mary, marries Robert
Moffatt, ii. 75

Smith, Sydney, i. 104 ; ii. 107
Smollett's married life, i. 106, 107 ;
ii. 187
Sou'.hey, Robert, ii. 85—92, 256
Spencer, John, 1st Earl, ii. 30
 Lady Diana, ii. 149
Stael, Madame de, ii. 1, 279
Stanhope, Lady Hester, ii. 278
Steele, Richard, i. 108, 109
Stella, ii. 285
Stephenson, George, i. 235 — 237
 Robert, i. 110—112
Sterne, ii. 137—142
Stoddart, Miss, marries W. Hazlitt,
ii. 170
Stothard, Thomas, i. 260—265
Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, ii. 153, 154
Stowell, Lord, i. 257—260
Stratheden, Lady, i. 10
Strong, Elizabeth Kirkham, marries
Charles Matthews, i. 224
Surtees, Bessie, married to Lord
Eldon, i. 317
Swift, ii. 284—287
Talleyrand, Madame de, i. 325
Taylor, Charlotte Augusta, marries
Dean Mansel, i. 86
Taylor, Mrs., wife of John Stuart
Mill, i. 170
Temple, William, friend of Bos-
well, i. 266—269
Tenterden, Charles Abbot, Lord,
ii. 81—85
Thackeray, W. M., ii. 142, 143
Thirlwall, Bishop, ii. 287
Thrale, Mrs. i. 75—192
 Cecilia, i. 293
Thurlow, Lord, i. 256
Tooke, Home, i. 293—295
Trollope, Anthony, ii. 33, 34
Tudway, Miss, marries Rev. Row
land Hill, i. 71—73
Turner, ii. 230—233
Unwin, Mrs., ii. 216
Vanessa, ii. 195
Varley, John, ii. 195
Vazeille, Mrs., married to Wesley r
ii. 233
Villette, Marquise de, ii. 101
Viney, General Sir James, i. 9

196

INDEX.

Walker, Jean, married to Allan
Cunningham, ii. 50
Walker,' Sarah, Hazlitt in love
with, ii. 171
Walpole, Horace, i. 184, 189, 303 ;
ii. 169, 287—290
Wandby, Miss Mary, wife of
Samuel Lover, ii. 72
Warburton, Eliot, ii. 11
Warens, Madame de, i. 247
Watkins, Miss, marries Thomas
Stothard, i. 260
Watt, James, ii. 34—37
Wedgwood, Jonah, i. 45, 113 —
115
Wedgwood, Sarah, i. 113
Wellesley, Marquis of, ii. 255
Wellington, Duke of, i. 49, 97 ; ii.
143, 144
Welsh, Jane Baillie, ii. 107—114

Wesley, John, ii. 233—241
Westbrook, Harriet, ii. 205
Westbury, Lord, i. 116—118
Whately, Archbishop, i. 3, 120—
123
Whewell, William, i. 180—186
Whitefield, ii. 144—148
Wilberforce, Samuel, ii. 37, 39
Wilkes, John, i. 329 ; ii. 209
Williams, Catherine Anne, i. 28
Wilson, Prof., i. 123, 124 ; ii. 52
Winchercombe, Sir Henry, ii. 100
Wolfe, General, i. 237—241
Wollstonecraft, Mary, i. 68—70;
ii. 205—209
Wordsworth, Dr., Bishop of
Lincoln, i. 39, 125
Wordsworth, Dorothy, ii. 42, 43
Wordsworth, William, ii. 39—42,
117

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